I got a coworker who does this. He's a company man through and through because he actually believes that one day it'll be his boots getting licked.
Oooh it's a jpeg instead of normal text, that means it's really true
I always feel good about my choice of leaving reddit when I see the top comment is dumb shit that we all rapidly downvote. Keep lemmy clean friends!
Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.
On the topic of boots, one book, The Iron Heel written by Jack London in early 1900s before any of the World Wars, really grabbed my interest in how stark it is in surfacing the early onset of a greed and oppression-riddled social environment of tyrannical government mechanisms.
The book entertains the thought of oligarchical entitied in capitalists economies resorting to the bloody massacres beyond non-violoent oppressions they perpetuate to practically have regular people be worked like slaves or be part of the aware or unaware collaborators in the non-violent oppression, all the while in latter years in reality saw openly tyrannical movements like fascism or Stalin's communism saw the violent oppressions almost as first maneuvers.
This latter violent-oppression-as-first-moves has become the boogeyman at the door awaiting if the capitalist oligarchs are destabilized in favor of direct governing via means of production being in the hands of workers or workers having a prominent voice in politics directly rather than being "represented" through lobbying elites or monopolized companies having the last say in their own industries and meddling with other industries.
What I want to say is that this earlier dystopian novel may have missed the mark on which countries utilized the shocking violent oppressions, but it is nevertheless very much on point in displaying the police as "pinkertons" or the literal heels or the inquisitors, agent provocateurs that we see news in these "anti-semitic protests being actually cried out by zionist instigators, shown with footages" among peaceful protests, the abyss people already being present as homeless/down-trodden/drug-abusers-as-an-escape/the extreme form of quiet quitters, corporations and billionaires owning monopoly on a starting industry and meddling with others, media being utilized to call anyone raising a hand in defense against genocides as terrorists, rapists, cannibals.and barbarians while demanding support for literal carpet bombing that is only not called as such because it is spread over weeks instead of hours, etc. in all of these so-called democracies in the west.
Any thoughts on these topics and the relevancy of the book, which I'd say in musing hyperbole that it is criminally under-discussed or mentioned?
This got me thinking about fascist takovers. Once those parties took power, they ended up taking over industry. However, in America it seems to be reaching the same goal through the opposite path. Industry is taking over the government. The parallels are scary. I am living in fear of violence from my neighbors. I see no path of escape. Malicious ignorance is insurmountable and booming.
It went the same order before, too. Hitler threw a literal meeting with the heads of industry asking to fund jis campaign, in what he claimed would be possibly the last election in a while. The US had a conspiracy that is literally called "the business plot".
Haha, yes, clearly it was the monopolies and oligarchies that created the Stallin regime. /sarcasm
I have a theory that what tends to fuel authoritarianism and hierarchy is power being alloted too much in any one sphere. Like if the state becomes the only power over resources the people who are predatory are drawn to positions within it. If business and private ownership is empowered and left unchecked they end up there. It's easy to forget that predatory expansionism is not simply a feature unique to capitalism. Human greed will adapt to fit whatever system where power is allowed to aggregate making it potentially tip and fall if unbalanced.
I'm having an aneurysm reading these comments. Between the people confusing(or purposefully getting wrong) the use of the phrase "harm reduction" as being in relation to it's use in election/voting discourse and people criticizing protest tactics, I think we need to refocus here, especially on that(in my opinion) bigger issue that the comic brings up, in that privatization is being wielded as a weapon of the state. Perhaps we put a pin on that, and when we're in a better position and we can advocate for stronger legal protections for protesting even on private property(rather idealistic and naive I know).
when we’re in a better position
Been waiting for that for about... 20 years now. Are we any closer? Seems like we're farther away than ever.
waking up to this thread:
Counterargument: in a nation with over 300 million guns, this situation won't continue indefinitely, in spite of what cops think.
Has he tried licking the boot yet?
Heard it tastes like pig.
No, I'd say it's more like this actually...
Those are from the last few days. Let me guess, all of those unarmed students going up against armed cops were a clear and present danger.
I try not to get into debating online. It goes nowhere and ends up with "no you" , name calling, "I thought this was America", sarcasm, and stereo typing groups of people. I'm tired at this point and I'll be pushed into whatever corner you want if drawn into one.
Change is inevitable. It's often not pretty. Freedom and security are always at play. And in the end it's your point of view that's going to be what matters, empathy as well, for other peoples hardships. There is not perfect solution to this, we can have perfect goals and Invision a perfect world. And we can try to get there. But calling all cops bad or all group A or B bad is just part of the problem to begin with. So I can't get behind person or group that pushes that kind of thinking. I have Gay friends, Trans friends, Cop friends, Jewish friends and so on. What I'm not going to do is bandwagon hate any of them. Police have guns because they have to enforce the law. It's scary as hell to be in large group of emotionally charged people with religion backed group thought and a feelings of injustice. But there you have it. Police have to move the people who don't want to move.
War is terrible and should be avoided when possible. War for land or power or religion influence is wrong and should be stopped. I think we can agree. I'm just tired of the victim mentality and stereo typing of each other. It will not work that way. And progress is not a straight line.
And........ I just did exactly what I said I wouldn't do.
Nooo only orange man can do fascism!
Well who showed up to a protest with just their own weak spindly body against a fully armored roided out line backer with decades of counter protest maneuvers and training.
The clownvoy were fucked but they managed to build a pretty good playbook for how to protest. Show up in a way that overwhelms the authorities and has no chapter in their playbook. I remember cities scrambling because they knew there just wasn't enough tow trucks in the city to do anything and most tow truck drivers were siding with the convoy.
Modern protesters are unappealing to most people to the point that every single person with a job would prefer to the be the boot and that's just PR. I've seen so many protests where I agreed with the cause but hated seeing the protests because they just set things back, never forward anymore.
Sorry... you're blaming police violence on the nonviolent protesters?
This has been every protest. Only in retrospect do most people think about protestors as being people fighting the good fight. Every single complaint I have ever seen for contemporary protests I have heard from boomers, and their parents, about the Vietnam protestors. My grandparents and great grandparents generations thought this way of those rebelling against the robber barony.
This is how it is.
Well who showed up to a protest with just their own weak spindly body
Um, Gandhi?
Fucking gross, Hexbear is leaking again.
Oh yeah, that's me. I'm totally a Tankie and not just someone who's watching cops beat up students.
Now I imagine that there are impressionable people who think this speaks the truth and I’m sad.
What part about it is untrue?
If nothing else, the
there is no right to assemble on private property, which is why we’ve privatized everything
Which isn’t true and the latest events which seemed to trigger this post happened on private business buildings, which is absolutely not a given right to protest there.
You can’t just take over a building and claim right to assemble, it’s just as ridiculous as Michael Scott’s claim of bankruptcy as a cudgel to assuage all issues, when that just isn’t how things work
Lastly, refusal to work within the legal framework does make those groups extreme.
When MLK did sit-ins, they didn’t destroy property and graffiti walls and the like. It’s not the same
