• ameancow@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Reminder people: food banks exist with or without politics and whether or not federal workers get paid. They are essential to the survival of many people and families and are almost entirely privately run and maintained by volunteers.

    If you want to make a very real difference in the lives of others, find where one is and bring them some things like socks, soap, toothbrushes and underwear, as well as canned meats or soups. It WILL get used and appreciated and it feels a lot better than you think it will knowing you fed a family or helped someone feel like a human again by giving them fresh socks to wear to work tomorrow. (A vast majority of people below the poverty line in the US are working and living in cars or tents.)

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    In a civilized country these things simply wouldn’t happen.
    Not paying an employee is simply illegal, and If what is happening in USA now happened here, we have public funds guaranteeing any unpaid employee by any employer get their money. Usually used for private companies that go bankrupt.

    USA is such a shitty country, their regulation is of the caliber that would only be expected of a very poor developing country that lack resources to do better.

    I don’t think most Americans are even close to understanding how shitty USA is as a country. It permeates everything because Americans accept their society to be shitty, because they kind of accept a minimal government that doesn’t even work.

    Having a country with a two party system that begs for stalemates, and then is incapable of handling a stalemate is such tremendous lack of foresight, I bet most kindergartens are run better.

    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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      8 hours ago

      Not paying an employee is simply illegal, and If what is happening in USA now happened here, we have public funds guaranteeing any unpaid employee by any employer get their money. Usually used for private companies that go bankrupt.

      Laws in most civilized countries simply say that if new budget is not passed in time the previous budget continues or default budget covering basic expenses (like federal workers salaries, bills etc.) is automatically created. Shutting down government is simply not an option.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        True, I have not heard of other countries that do what USA is doing with the shutdown.
        Americans are such a bunch of amateurs on democracy, despite they were among the first to use it!
        Or maybe because of it? They sorely need a major reform of their democracy. But it looks like it will probably be the wrong way to an even more authoritarian system.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          5 hours ago

          The problem is that they were “early adopters” and created a system impossible to reform. Civil war was the perfect moment to do a major rewrite of the system. They had a human rights issue and their system proved completely unable to resolve it. Unfortunately instead of realizing it’s broken and fixing it they did some minor changes and moved on. Now they have a constitution that is more of a holy book than legal document. No one understands it, the laws don’t mean anything but it’s sacred so it’s impossible to even talk about changing it.

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          I think they can’t because their constitution is a holy text from the heavens and therefore cannot be trashed (or archived) and rewritten from scratch.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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            19 minutes ago

            It literally has amendments. The latest one was ratified in 1992. The founding fathers considered the constitution to be a living document, hence why there is an amendment process.

            Ironically, the people treating the constitution like gospel are the same people that keep ignoring it.

    • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      I don’t think most Americans are even close to understanding how shitty USA is as a country.

      They’re brainwashed from birth to believe they’re the greatest country in the world. Most of them never question it. Those that do need years to overcome the beliefs embedded in their heads.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Yes American exceptionalism is pretty crazy.

        The arrogance of calling a national championship “World Series” is a very clear example of that, and also calling the country America is another blatant example of exceptionalism.
        It is this exceptionalism that makes Trump believe he can bully the rest of the world into submission. But all it will do is accelerate the fall of USA from being the de facto world leader.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Series_champions

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      I don’t have to know where you live to say that you’re trending this direction too. If you’re not vigilant you’ll find yourself in the same position before too long.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        That is only true to a minor degree regarding immigrants, we are not on the way to become an authoritarian hellhole, and our democracy is in no way threatened. We do not have a single anti democratic party in parliament among the 12 parties represented here, and we do not have the systemic problems or extremism USA has.

        Saying we (Denmark) are heading in the same direction is a false equivalence. Saying it about EU is false too, although there are right wing tendencies in some regions, I am pretty sure they are temporary. For instance even if AfD should become the biggest party in Germany, they can never form a government alone (government is comparable to the US administration), except the checks and balances by parliament are way stronger.

        By far the most EU democracies are way way stronger than USA, because they are not built undemocratically to be 2 party systems like USA and UK.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    This is the conservative version of America.

    Starting to think maybe everyone should have shown up and voted in the most likely way to prevent conservatives from having power. I know that’s a lot to ask from Americans.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
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      22 hours ago

      But voting for Kamala would be bad for Palestine! Not voting was the only way to save Palestine! /s

      • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        “I disagreed with Kamala on a single issue involving two nations on the opposite side of the planet, so I didn’t vote for her and held the door open for fascists instead.”

        Yeah, not a bright bunch.

        • fxleak@lemmings.world
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          3 hours ago

          “I’m gonna keep voting for the lesser evil candidate and get mad when people don’t fall in line to support their oppressors.”

          You guys are insane, and a bunch of pussies.

          You’ve been conditioned to only focus on gridlock issues in a culture war to distract you from how we’re all being robbed every day by the ownership class.

          • fosho@lemmy.ca
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            40 minutes ago

            nah. we know we are being robbed by the ruling class. but that doesn’t change which outcome is the obvious better choice in a binary system.

            throwing your vote away for the presidential election will never solve that problem and you’re a pretty obvious dufus for thinking that it will.

          • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 hours ago

            If you don’t like that, and you shouldn’t, show up to your local meetings regularly, not just two weeks before the primary, and encourage other like minded people to do so. Doing that allows you to get the better candidates recommended in the voting guide, canvas for them, phone bank for them, etc. I’ll be there waiting. In my precinct it would only take 3-4 people to tip the balance from corpo Dems to progressives, and maybe even an actual leftist, for local office and state legislative candidates. Start local and trickle up.

            Or if you’re already doing that, thanks and keep doing it.

            But until those efforts bear fruit, when faced with a binary choice please pick the less bad one.

            • fxleak@lemmings.world
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              2 hours ago

              The problem is that even people on the left, who should be the good guys, don’t want to solve these issues.

              They’d rather have fascism than socialism because they don’t want to pay more in taxes.

              This is why they’re all cool with perpetuating a culture war at the expense of the class war.

              • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 hours ago

                You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying.

                Those people aren’t the left, they’re the fucking problem.

                Show up locally with other leftists, or at least progressives, outnumber the corpo Dems, and change the party from the ground up. Leaving the party in the hands of the people who currently run it and complaining about the candidates they put forward isn’t going to do you any good.

                • fxleak@lemmings.world
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                  2 hours ago

                  Right. I’ll call them “democrats” instead of people on the left.

                  Now hopefully you can understand my point better.

                  They don’t want to pay more in taxes, so they’d rather have a fascist in office than a socialist.

                  What you’re suggesting is actually a load of bullshit to make you think you’re having an impact when you’re really not. I’m sorry, it’s the truth and the sooner you realize it the sooner you can stop wasting your time and focus on something that’s more effective.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          So very well said.

          Some of them are still around here and have the fucking balls to pop up here and chastise people they have derisively labeled “liberals”. They think they have the moral high ground. Even now. And, if it sadly comes to it, when everyone is being put into FEMA camps, I doubt they will admit their wrongdoing and will instead lecture people on things like “don’t blame the voters”. FFS. It’s bonkers.

          I know a few of this type IRL, too, unfortunately. No self awareness and no apologies. I think it’s mostly narcissism, really. The ones online are possibly paid actors/bots put there to sow division.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    23 hours ago

    If federal workers ever weren’t sure how little their employer feels for their life situation, here you go.

  • etherphon@midwest.social
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    23 hours ago

    This is such an idiotic game to play and so god damn harmful to everyone except a few, of course we can survive without a government for a while, probably even a few years maybe, but it’s fucking vital and everything WILL go to shit without it, so it’s so disingenuous to keep doing this as to prove to people we don’t need government, but of course that’s their goal and I wouldn’t expect anything less from this bunch of Reno grade magicians.