The White House Confirms It Altered Photo of Arrested Protester to Depict Her Sobbing: ‘The Memes Will Continue’
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/white-house-accused-by-prominent-observers-of-digitally-altering-image-of-arrested-church-protestor/Open linkView original on lemmy.world1023
Comments239
That's not a meme, that's Propaganda.
It’s also libel made with actual malice.
right? it is literally the definition of libel...
Gonna be a really expensive lawsuit. That is paid out by all of us taxpayers.
You can sue Donald Trump without suing the US Government. Right now several lawmakers are preparing a lawsuit against Pam Bondi over the Epstein Files.
If we flip the house and senate I'm gonna start sending drafts to representatives for a law that makes the Trump estate and all future president's estates liable for all the avoidable and frivolous lawsuits on the basis of which they did not protect the human beings who live in this nation nor represent the system of laws which govern them, rather that they were personal and need to be paid for personally by the officials responsible for giving the orders resulting in lawsuit.
You would have to show that Trump specifically ordered the alteration. That almost certainly didn't happen and it was someone else in the administration that actually made that call.
? The boss of an organization is always responsible for what happens in said organization. So, no. They wouldn't.
Gestures broadly at basically every CEO avoiding punishment for the illegal shit their companies do daily
Just because they avoid it doesn't mean that the express purpose of a CEO isn't to take that fall...
That's the entire point of the role and excuse for the compensation, is it not?
Law? In this economy? In this part of the world? Localised entirely within our judicial system?
And actually published by the government.
Its a lie. They lie so often that they think its truth.
their truth is the worst lie
You're not going to believe this, but...
Defamation.
Also, nice racist bias on that model (making her fatter).
I dunno about fatter, but it definitely made her darker. Oof.
What should we do? Can we get another maga guy to take a shot?
Honestly both might be a difference in when the shot was taken.
Its the same picture. One is edited.
That's the entire subject of this post.
Its cropped and edited.... Feel free to read the article which covers this in its entirety.
Even just the headline should have been enough
I mean... One would hope, but clearly it wasn't enough for some.
Yeah, it's literally the opening words of the title.
Ohhh i see it now. The officer's arm has the same shilloete on the window. Wow the model really edited the lady. Must have been a bias of the training data to put her more forward/in focus.
And darker.
I know history is full of nasty little dictators and their lackeys but have any of them ever been this fucking childish?
Yes. But it’s so much easier to be a child and have that get out to the masses. It would take a lot of effort to doctor a photo and get it published 100 years ago.
I don't know about childish but the Khmer Rouge was batshit insane, their way of "governing" was completely unsustainable.
Hitler was actually extremely childish as was his entire regime. The similarities are remarkable.
Henry VIII of England was basically what would happen if a pro American football player was a powerful king. He's suspected to have had CTE.
Versailles was basically a cruel experiment on the mental health of trapped nobility and rulers, that involved basically nothing but petty social games for power and prestige, but no options to use them.
Rome had plenty of emperors like this including Caligula and Nero. Nero had a neck beard and unhealthy attachment to his mother. Meanwhile if half of what was written about Elagabulus is true then we have proof of how bad of an idea it is to give absolute power to a horny teenager with neither qualifications nor training.
Speaking of weird mommy issues, Wilhelm I of Prussia/Germany was a weird childish man whose family spat was the first world war. On the other side was Nicolas of Russia who wasn't much better.
Also Ghaddafi was nuts, like in funny and horrifying ways, but definitely never matured after taking power young.
So yeah, I'm conflating kings, emperors, and dictators as all more or less the same, because they kinda are. Julius Caesar took the title of dictator, was assassinated to prevent him from being a king, and was invoked by the emperors. We have a modern tendency to think of dictators as people who came to power through coups or the military, which can lead towards more mature and sane figures, but we still use the term for the hereditary absolute ruler of North Korea (it's a socialism themed monarchy) and we don't use it to describe the huge portion of roman emperors who were generals installed by coup. Additionally, history indicates (to me at least) that you likely have to be a bit nuts and immature to overthrow an established republic, because of the behavior shown by citizens in a destabilizing republic.
I understand the urge to treat this administration as a freak of history, but they're just too similar to the third reich to do so responsibly. And yeah those similarities include immaturity. It seems that a destabilizing republic is best hijacked by the narcissistic, and narcissists who are leaning into their disorder tend towards immaturity because growth often requires painful self reflection.
Dystopian fiction: The regime alters photos to make people look happy and smiling, to hide their cruelty.
Dystopian reality: The regime alters photos to make people look sad and pained, to brag about their cruelty.
This is actually really scary. They’re modifying photos to manipulate and control people.
I mean, they're also abducting children and murdering dissenters to control people...
The little things are more insidious.
The altering of a photo is meant to distract you from the fact that they are arresting ordinary citizens who don't have the financial means to legally protect themselves. It may seem like an irrelevant distinction based on everything else they do but this is an escalation.
She should sue for defamation.
Now, I am not an expert of US law, but if American news has taught me anything, the only possible outcome of going through the courts is the following:
Court decides against the govt
Govt appeals to a higher court
Higher court decides against the govt
Govt appeals to a higher court
Supreme court decides Trump is God and all is well
The end.
Billions of dollars.
What a joke of a country.
Feels bad, man
Really bad
Just a very unfunny one.
the right can't meme
It's not so much that they can't meme, it's that they have only one joke: "Look how I can make this person fear me".
Ignoring the fakery, I don't see how the alteration makes her less sympathetic. I would also be distressed if being frog-marched by facists for the crime of being born autistic.
All this propaganda does, is cement my decision to fight. The Trump Regime and Dogey Americans, are enemies of any decent human being, and must be destroyed.
They think they are portraying the subject as 'weak'. It's for their racist base to feel like 'right on, we made a weak black leftist woman cry, like they all deserve''.
It was never about making her less sympathetic, but a celebration of hurting the 'correct' people to get hurt.
It's not JUST for thier base.
For anyone pondering joining such actions, these would be leaders.
If you're thinking of joining, and the leaders look "weak", it might not inspire much faith. You might decide to hold back.
The truth is, she looked calm and collected, confident in her decisions and actions. She looks like a leader. She looks like someone worth following. That type of imagery is dangerous if you're trying to suppress action.
So, in short, it's an attempt at active suppression, not just a "treat" for thier own. It's the modern equivalent of going on about how short Napoleon is. It's an attempt to diminish those they're afraid of to try and keep others from following them.
This comment deserves to be its own post.
It's also meant to say "look see we can make them regret it" as well as to draw into the paternal metaphor they keep using. Those weird comments they keep making about "daddy" being home to punish dissenters, feels very in line with this. The idea being that they're trying to depict themselves as tough but necessary, and opposition as the same as a child misbehaving because of unenforced boundaries. In this regard they're depicting her as crying to treat her like a child who has been spanked, and as such (in their eyes) one who will in the future respect their authority and eventually thank them for it.
They need to maintain the narrative that the protesters to contain both hardened rebels, and primarily be ordinary people who just don't understand discipline and the need to enforce the rules.
Now he's hurting the people he needs to be hurting! I still cannot afford jack squat, and don't have a job or health care, but at least he's punching down, thank goodness!
It’s not meant for you. They actually don’t care how it makes you feel. It’s for their racist, fascist loving voters. They love this.
The Memes will Continue.
The jolly old USSR was as half-assed as the Trump DOJ. There's a famous case of someone being airbrushed out of a group photo, but they couldn't be bothered to get rid of his shoes.
An ICE pastor is the craziest part of this story... has the cunt ever read his supposedly favourite book?
Fascism loves using religion to enforce it's will.
Most religious institutions are authoritarian by nature. So no surprise there.
Most haven't, it's about money and connections not faith and community empowerment.
Just the Old Testament. Yahweh is bit of a dick in that half, from what I recall. Gaslighting some dude to sacrifice his child, I think?
The original "just testing if you love me" trashy girl
Well in that particular case he stopped him last second like 'oh man, you were actually gonna go through with it, nah bro just joking you don't gotta kill your kid.' But in other instances he fully destroyed cities, the world, and just killed random people cause they didn't do what he said.
YHWH is the archetype of a controlling, abusive father.
The other highly informative part is the Book of Job, where God and Satan are hanging out and making wagers on how severely they can fuck with some decent, honest guy before he loses it.
The opening verse of Highway 61 Revisted should be added to the Bible. It's more insightful and better-written than most of the canonical parts. I'd also throw in Dante's Inferno and Paradiso. I'm in two minds about adding Milton, though.
They are more on the exploiting side of religion.
Nineteen Eighty-Four?
Very professional and mature. This is what everyone expects from a government institution.
It's like fucking 4chan is running the goddamned country.
So let me tell you a little bit about the people he hired…
Y’ever heard of Qanon?
Or Gamergate, for that matter.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/gamergate-harassment-reddit-twitter-cec
It’s almost like you are ALLOWING 4chan to run your goddamned country.
Thinking anyone against this administration is ‘allowing’ it to happen is a childish understanding of the modern police state and civil wars.
To be “against” something requires action. You aren’t against. You’re neutral at best, hoping someone else fixes the problem.
You don't know me. I'd wager you don't know any of the people you hurl such a poor excuse for an activist comment at.
I'm willing to bet that I've done more to fight back against fascism this week than you have your whole life and I wasn't even born in the US.
Me, the other day: "They've finally done it. They've finally hit rock botto...wait, nope, I was wrong."
Me, yesterday: "They've finally done it. They've finally hit rock botto...wait, nope, I was wrong."
Me, this morning: "They've finally done it. They've finally hit rock botto...wait, nope, I was wrong."
Me, tomorrow: "They've finally done it. They've finally hit rock botto...wait, nope, I was wrong."
Etc, etc, and fucking, etc.
They have hit rock bottom but they immediately started digging.
Trump has been doing that every day since 2016. Every day he says the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and every next day he keeps trumping [bazinga] himself.
As an American, watching the highest office in this country be turned into an absolute joke over the decades has been demoralizing, to say the least. There's nothing to be proud of. I feel like, thanks to social media, we got to see the real people, and then it distilled people down to their worst parts. I despise seeing the leaders of the nation be so petty, so idiotic, so childish.
I mean, throw this on the pile of reasons the current administration isn't worthy. The felonies, the child raping, the blatant attempts to start wars, the blatant disregard of the Constitution, and just misinformation galore. They edited a photo... how small of a person do you have to be to think "I'm part of the government, I have access to the White House official channel, I'm going to be very transparent about what I think of the current situation and use AI to mock and try to spread misinformation." I hope people link back to these things (all of these things, not just this photo) every single time anyone in the current administration speaks. When ever any company supports them. When ever any person supports them. Like NEVER let it go. Just flood them every single time. They say Merry Christmas, bring up the Epstien files, the rape, the photo editing, the felonies, the... everything. Just non-fucking-stop.
It's just so god damn fucking embarrassing to be an American right now. And I know by the end of the year, I'll be wishing to get back to how it is now, I'll look back fondly on how it was "only" so bad at the start of 2026.
Sorry for the rant, I'm just, so god damn tired of every single day Dimentia Don, doing yet again, another dumbass thing.
This is not even a meme
America won't tolerate "attacks" in their churches yet seems to have no answer for and tolerates quite a lot of school shootings....
There have been mass shootings in churches, they have caused substantial concern, brows were briefly furrowed and thoughts and prayers were solemnly ctrl+v'd.
God's house, God's rules.
A government agent altering a photograph to render an inaccurate image of an accused person will raise serious questions of bias. But also, any defense will likely now include whether the government has also digitally altered any other evidence concerning the matter, and whether that evidence was developed for public consumption or otherwise. to generate bias.
I'd say more broadly this raises concerns about how the White House directly controls or damages the credibility of the Judicial Branch. But, for the world audience, this should raise red flags about the (in)stability of the US in general.
I've been saying this for months. A primary role of any jury is to determine the credibility of evidence. I would argue that no jury should trust any evidence presented by the Trump DoJ at this point.
Oh well Biden and Harris would just been more of the same so whatever.
Harris adviser says VP ran 'flawless' campaign, GOP campaign managers candid on primary missteps
Damn, I guess people were just too stupid to vote for the most qualified candidate to ever run for office and the country deserves what it gets. Maybe four more years of fascist tyranny will teach people to vote correctly next time. Or maybe we just won't have elections anymore, because stupid idiot Americans aren't responsible enough to manage their own country.
The important thing to remember is that it's never the fault of the people in power. It's always the gross, dumb, smelly voters who can't pick the Lesser Of Two Evils often enough.
It's both. I'm not going to pretend that people voting against their own self interests isn't a problem. If people actually voted in a way that would help them we'd have a lot more Dems than Republicans in the USA.
It's stupid to pretend we don't live in a first past the post system where most voters are going to vote straight D or straight R. Voting 3rd party is just shredding your vote in almost all cases.
The problem with "lesser evil" politics is that neither candidate represents your interests.
You had a corporate Democrat running against a fascist Republican. This after four years of liberals breaking their campaign promises, fattening the wallets of Techbro AnCaps, and beating up civil rights protestors on national TV.
It's stupid to close off your primary so an unpopular incumbent in a dementia spiral doesn't have to campaign against another wave of progressive outsiders.
When Henry Cuellar or Jim Justice or Kristen Sinema are the Ds on my ballot, it isn't even FPTP. It's a forgone conclusion I'm getting fucked from either side.
Three weeks after doomsday, yeah her campaign manager’s gonna say something nice. What is this supposed to show, anyway?
Did they get caught giving away the dark secret that they did their best to run a successful campaign?
Her primary problem was going for the left's vote when the left doesn't vote.
The only way to fix it is to go further right and pick up the voters who are disillusioned by Trump in 2028.
Terrible news for the Mamdani campaign.
Can't wait for Pete Buttigieg to campaign on doubling the ICE budget.
Pretty much apples-to-apples comparison. They’ve got you there SMCF. It’s an accepted maxim that national Presidential races are exactly the same as mayoral races in NYC.
Well on Lemmy, people think the Mayor of NYC determines foreign policy regarding Israel, so...
Wait till you find out how many states Bernie Sanders won
Not enough to win the primary?
More than enough to win some of the biggest states in the country.
But presumably without any leftist voters?
. . . Eight?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Bernie_Sanders#2020
Counting a lot more than eight
39% of NYC's registered voters turned out to vote in the last mayor election and he got slightly more then fifty percent of the vote.
I don't think that's the gotcha you're going for.
That's not "the left", just voter apathy.
Mamdani was the first to get more than a million votes in a mayoral election since the 60's. The 2021 turnout was less than 25%, 2017 was barely above 25%, etc. It has been more than 2 decades since there has been a level of turnout like was seen with Mamdani.
It is, in fact, quite a "gotcha".
Mamdani barely got more votes than Trump did in NYC in 2024.
He won with about 19.5% of the registered voters.
With 6 other people to vote for, and the biggest mayoral election turnout in decades...
Again, voter apathy <> "the left".
Voter Turnout Highest in Half Century as Mamdani Phenomenon Galvanizes Electorate
Still waiting to hear about all those voters who stayed home because Sliwa wasn't conservative enough.
Stop asking the Baileys, Chuck. They're full of shit.
What do you mean Harris literally said "ceasefire?"
She didn't order the IDF to stand down though. So, fascism I guess.
I know sometimes I feel like the only sane liberal on a site full of progressives.
Aha! So you admit you love genocide and have no moral compass whatsoever!
You’re an embarrassment to purity-test political nut-scratching! Can you just imagine, for ONE second what would have happened if Harris had won?? It’s too terrifying to contemplate!
Those weren't progressives. Those were right-wing concern trolls cosplaying as leftists.
Why do they always depict a "far left agitator" as a black person? 🧐
(I mean you all know the answer... its racism)
If Democrats don't prosecute the FUCK out of themselves for being complicit with this administration as well as the scummy admin itself, then we are FUCKED because they'd just enable the next wave of fascists.
Fuck Trump and everyone who enabled him up to this point
Why people always talking like the Democrats need to fix this shit. They are controlled opposition. They're not going to be our saviors.
It physically hurt when Cuck Boomer said that we still need to investigate Renee Good's murder before we know what the outcome is. I'm sorry, but that centrist slop is the exact opposite of what we need. What I believe we need.
So yeah, I'll keep talking shit about the Dems because they're supposed to represent my views, since we live in a Representative Democracy.
But maybe that needs to change. I'm all for a general strike to make these maggots in suits crumble to their knees. Minnesota is trying to do that today in fact
Not really, they're supposed to represent the views they said they'd represent. If you disagree you should have voted for one of the other options. The real issue is that this "democracy" only gives you two valid options: right and far right.
You cannot know what every single issue will be in the future.
Sure, vote for people who have the same values, but even then people can flip flop or cave to pressure.
What I'm advocating for is pressure from the citizenry to have these politicians do what we want OUTSIDE OF ELECTIONS because their duty to represent people doesn't start and stop in an election season.
Fuck that noise
You don't vote because you can't predict the future?
That is the stupidest shit I've ever heard.
You don't pay attention to what they do outside of elections. The number of times I've seen phoney fucking progressives criticize the Democrats only to be immediately proven wrong because they did no research. Lazy self-centered fucks exist on memes and assumptions.
Nice fucking strawman idiot.
Let me know when you're ready to discuss like adults without misrepresenting other's beliefs.
You understand an investigation is a good thing?
I want a Democratic party doing propaganda IN THE LEFT DIRECTION.
At least at the start. Cuz that's what the Right does. Lie at first, then walk it back.
Do the investigation when the fire dies down.
We don't have time for liberals to compromise and capitulate. People are dying every day.
Yeah, you're right, this is exactly same as when Biden is in Office.
Fuck "both sides" dumbasses.
This isn't about Biden (who was also a really bad president). It's about what happens next. If we want to end fascism, we can't rely on the Democrats to do it for us, we need to start holding the Democrats accountable for all the ways they enabled fascism and build a new movement for and by the people. Democrats are beholden to the same oligarchs as the Republicans who directed this outcome.
You have never had a two stroke engine design explained to you, have you?
Or heard of the "Ratchet Effect" for neoliberal democracies. That's ok, study not needed
They always enable fascists because they prefer fascism to socialism. The American people are left with a choice, either revolution, or submission. Fascism is the inevitable end point of capitalism. Power and wealth concentrates at the top while the rest of society is starved of resources, and those at the top use those resources to get the working class to fight amongst themselves, by blaming their failures on minority groups.
I would argue that fascism is the ultimate tool for capitalism, for the reasons that you outline.
But I agree with your sentiment
Capitalism can never end any other way than with fascism. Human greed requires it.
Fascism is capitalism's final tool before self-imploding imo. Either way, both suck
What's the distinction? Genuinely curious, asking in good faith
I think they're saying it not an end point, its cyclical. As momentum for revolution builds, fascism kind of comes in and kills the momentum and rewrites the history. And then it ultimately crumbles on its own weight and we go back to regular old capitalism for a while.
We need to preserve our history and use the fascist momentum to fuel the fires of revolution.
Is this even capitalism?
Spoiler: they won't!
"WhAt wE nEeD nOw iS uNiTy"
....and as a bonus, you know what else they won't do? They won't bother to roll back or repeal any of Trump's bullshit. Welcome to the new normal, where nothing is normal and your government is either fascists or the spineless cowards who pander to them
They don't care. They will launder the reputation of Republicans and pardon many of them. Meanwhile any protesters against this will be shown no such mercy by the same democrats.
And all this will be in the name of 'healing'.
Goddamn you fucking idiots will never rest until Democrats never win again.
Why they would they prosecute themselves and WHAT FOR?
They're not "complicit", you stupid fucks didn't vote for them and now they don't have power. That's how that works.
I voted for them. Many Leftists voted for them because we were doing harm reduction.
But there are no elections happening now, so why the fuck would we do harm reduction? Primaries don't happen for a couple more weeks! General elections don't happen for months or even years!
The Democratic party, whether they realize it or not, are supposed to act as the opposition party to the fascists. The fact that they are CONTROLLED opposition doesn't change their primary function from the perspective of the voters. To the rich and wealthy, of course Democrats are the controlled opposition, and for good reason to the rich and wealthy.
NOW is the time to pressure Democrats to do what we want, and scold them for ignoring to. NOW is the time to fund and volunteer for progressive candidates across the country who are participating in this year's primaries. NOW is the time to organize with political organizations and mutual aide groups.
Democrats should be prosecuted because they've enabled this administration when they've had plenty of opportunities to ACT in the past to prevent this present time from occuring. I'm mostly referring to the triple crown of Blue Executive, House, and Senate twice since Obama's first term.
May I remind Marxist-Leninists who give a fuck about the US that revolution cannot be forced on a people. Revolutionaries must work within the systems of the masses - indeed voting and paying lip service to their petty "democracy" - until the time is right.
.....context? Who is that on the right?
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD during the height of the great purge. He fell out of favour, was tortured, convicted of various crimes (including wrongful purgings, funny enough), and secretly executed. Don't feel too bad for him though, he was a nasty character.
I don't think it's a particularly apt comparison. He was previously an important government minister, edited out of the picture to pretend that actually, Stalin was never cool with him. This woman is just a citizen that the US government has decided to humiliate using generative AI.
Context is the government faking photographs.
No the left is just the western imperialists trying to make glorious Russia look bad by pretending Joseph Stalin was the propagandist not those imperial western swine.
Bondi: "Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON (our) PLACES OF WORSHIP.”
Nothing like having a "presidency" done by tweets and memes.
FFS.
I was looking for this before I said basically the same thing.
It's almost like they don't understand how and why everyone likes memes. Memes are like a mycelium. Okay make up your own metaphor. Memes are like my gut flora.
Memes are not allowed to be poisonous disinformation.
Memes have contained dangerous misinformation for over a decade. The bigger thing is that this is government propaganda trying to pass itself off as bottom up relatable content.
Memes are just fantasy from earliest human communication. Or something. I'll post when I get published on this /s
Yes
Welcome to the USA, deepfakes are not only legal but encouraged.
Uuuhhh, by default you should always assume that if information comes from the whitehouse, that it's modified, faked, or whatever to make the USA look better.
NEVER trust anything coming from the US whitehouse (or it's congress, or just anything from the US government)
That was good advice ten years ago, now it's just rule #1, because literally EVERYTHING they say now is a lie. Trump breathes lies, he couldn't stop lying if he wanted to I guess because I literally have a hard time hearing or seeing anything from him that isn't a complete and outrageous lie. Same goes for his ass kissing cronies.
Altered you say?
My original edit was NSFW but it would have been taken down. Feel free to imagine a different kind of meat stick.
so that's what Bill Clinton's dick looks like huh?
You’ll probably get banned anyway. Advocating violence or something. This is .world haha
That would be violence...against the "meat stick".
Yes.
Perm ban for you!!! - Lund
It’s always inspiring to see the bottomless well of incompetence, absurdity, and stupidity that makes up the entirety of this white house.
I no longer feel shame as a person, because I have been presented evidence that I am not a hemorrhoid on society. I don't hurt people for fun nor profit.
I wonder how many judges will have the courage to sanction the government for this conduct... If POTUS lies or falsifies documents, throw the charges out already. We can't have a tainted jury.
And that won't stop Mr. Orange. But at least it will give some relief to people who are harassed by him.
The judicial system is stacked with Trump supporters.
Lies on top on lies
imagine being older than 20 and using memes.
Time to organize
I know, my pantry really is getting out of hand
Yes!
Every day I'm glad I don't have any Trump cultists in my circle. The everyone is 12 theory continues.
More like everyone is 92 because most kids today are smarter then this.
I bet if you showed this case, without political context to a class none would laugh and all would agree its wrong for officials to do this.
What's the rule for defamation or misrepresentation here? This feels like something you should be able to use for evidence of malicious prosecution.
The US is so cooked.
We need socialism
USSR anthem starts playing
Hell March!
Because they sent their socialists into gulags?
Huh? I was born in USSR, it was a socialist state. Had it's perks like free housing (can't choose), but it was all around unbearable and miserable
Gulag was used for dissidents and whoever conspired against the (socialist) state. What you're saying feels like American moment
EDIT: If you think you're a slave in capitalism, wait till you realize that in a socialist state, the government TELLS you what will be your job for the rest of the life, you can't choose where to live, you're a cog in a system doomed to work wherever the people above deemed necessary. You're a tool, and as soon as you start crying, you'll get replaced. Socialism dues not imply humanity, it's about distributed work and resources.
Those problems are not inherent to socialism.
Isn't it the dictatorship part that's the problem? I don't think gulags and managed employment are an intrinsic part of socialism, just the authoritarianism of the Soviet.
Same for capitalism really. If it's regulated and democratic it works fine for most people, but if it's left unchecked and allowed to go rampant, it causes all kinds of problems (different problems to a rampant authoritarian socialist state, but just as bad)
It’s probably really important to highlight that the USSR was a communist state and communism relies on socialist policy to operate. You never mentioned communism once.
It wasn’t the social policies, such as provision of housing and education, that were the issues, it was the communist application of oppressive law.
The distinction is important because the word ‘socialism’ is wrongly feared in some western societies because it is taken as communism. So, any time a politician wants to introduce a socialist policy such as government paid healthcare, they’re marked as an evil socialist.
Personally, I don't think the concept of communism itself was at fault. Rather, I believe it is two elements:
1: The wrong people were the leadership. They set the tone for everything that happens, creating the precedents and longterm establishment of the government.
2: A lack of consistent rules to distribute power among individuals in a relatively fair manner, that allows them to keep a modest amount of power. Things like wealth, gun ownership, the ability to unionize, freedom of speech and association, education, voting rights, and so on. While the USA's Constitution is flawed, it did a decent job considering that we were a nation that initially only occupied the eastern seaboard of a continent, with a relatively small population.
The problems we see today come from distance, population size, technology, inequality, and our elites not being beholden to the nation's interests. Billionaire creatures like Elon, Trump, Thiel, and so forth, can simply hop on a plane and leave for distant lands. They wouldn't lose enough wealth if they had to jump ship from the vessel that they crashed into the rocks, free from threats to their life. Ordinary people like you and me would be left holding a bag of shit.
What I argue, is that Soviet Russia's creation was too flawed to allow communism to be healthy, rather than communism itself being bad. They could have used capitalism, and the results wouldn't have been any different. The big reason communism got a bad rap, is that it presented a seed of 'what could be' that threatened established interests. Part of that is from socialism threatening globalist capitalism, but also because Russia is dangerous to its neighbors. The other powers, regardless of size, had incentive to poke a stick into the wheels of their rivals.
Communism was just an excellent scapegoat for propaganda, because it was a newfangled concept. People are creatures of feeling, and are disturbed by things they haven't seen before. Be it being trans, black, or socialist, a boogeyman can be manufactured out of the unfamiliar.
No, unfortunately, communism is flawed because no mechanism exists to stop those people from gaining power within it. In fact, it’s those people in general that instigate communism as their preferred system because it’s that exploitable.
Some of the ideals behind it are terrific. In a very advanced world, where we have much better control of the instinctual and irrational, poorly thought out parts of our makeup under control, it’s probably the logical direction. We aren’t there yet by a long, long way. Anywhere near that in fact. We’d have to have religion ‘worn out’ of society first; people in general would need to outgrow that. When that includes religious fanatics, you see how far we are away from a society where systems that depend on individual integrity entirely can be successful.
If we survive the next few centuries, yeah, our successful society could quite possibly be something quite communist in design.
IMO, communism hasn't gotten a truly fair shake. Many, MANY feudalistic and capitalistic societies died for all sorts of reasons. Nowhere nearly as many communist existences were attempted, so the apparent survival and success rates would seem lower.
In any case, I think that some form of democratic socialism would be the next step beyond the USA's Republic government. Much as how the Magna Carta and the Constitution reduced the political power of rulers, I believe an economic Bill of Rights would be needed. Things that guarantee housing, UBI, wealth floors and ceilings, worker unionization and voting on leadership pay, ect.
Well, I did say socialist state, not social policies. I think (assume) the differences are pretty clear. EU have good social policies as an example, but definitely are not socialist states. Extremity versus balance.
You might assume it, but you’ve seen the damage first hand painting socialism in a bad light because of its necessary attachment to communism has done. Others don’t make the same assumption you do, they view socialism as communism, because people such as yourself make that statement.
Communism is seriously flawed. Socialism, the economic arm it and other governments use, is only flawed if it’s used as part of a flawed system. Fascism is also dependent on some socialist policy but that doesn’t make socialism bad.
There actually isn’t really a socialist state; socialism is the economics those states rely on. They’re either communist, fascist or some other form of dictatorial government. Several European countries apply socialism quite strongly in their economics and we don’t need to discuss how they’re doing.
The distinction is important.
Giving the workers more crumbs while all power remains with capital isn't socialism.
Communism is when you're oppressive for no reason at all.
Lol no. USSR by definition was not communist, only by it's name. Look up what communism actually is. It has no central government for starters. This is why it's hard for me to even refer to USSR as communists, they were a socialist state.
The S in USSR is "Socialist". You could say that Communism is the end goal (stateless, classless), and socialism is the transitional stage, but USSR never reached communism, they only had a party that called themselves communist party of socialist state
Correct, which is why I am mocking the liberal who thinks socialism is European style social democracy and AES are evil oppressive places because "communist application of oppressive law"
Orwell, 1984
So.... Libel.
Sounds like a decent defamation case.
Time to study socialist/communist theory. Seriously! https://redsails.org/
the white house has zero credibility under the trump regime with me. they release fake pictures along with fake news to push their Nazi agenda behind doors.
Don't you worry darlings, we're all laughing our asses off at Trump and Vance memes too. It is hilarious to put your hated enemies in unflattering situations, isn't it. Have fun with the deluge fuckers!
In THEIR case, it's part of the state media. In YOUR case, you can run into problems with memes and tweets, including FB posts that are critical of conservatives now, too - see that woman in Miami that got a visit from the cops. Nothing violent at all in the Facebook post....
I don't live in your country. Nor do I use Facebook or any of the other major socials for that very reason. If they come looking for lemmy, I'm fucked!
Well, didn't mean you in particular, but "you" in the sense of anyone not in the Taco regime.
Fair enough. I did not get that, nuance can be difficult in short text.
Cut out the lying tongues of the propagandists!
Oh, wow. Where do I begin?
Did... Did 4chan take over the United States???
Since about 2015 or so. It got remarkably worse in 2017-2021 and then again in 2025...
racist sons of pony dog soldiers
Cool, and so will the resistance you shitstains
When you can't govern, meme.
More confirmation of the rampant hypocrisy in the religion
A clown government for a clown people.
Why? It’s already embarrassing enough to be arrested
Depends on the reason for the arrest. If I get zip-tied and dragged off the streets for saying mean things about orange man, I won't be the embarrassed one.
No I certainly would agree with that. But being restrained against your will and having your records publicized about being an offender of the law certainly doesn’t bode well for your own public image or on employment applications.
It's not embarrassing for her, it's embarrassing for the police that they arrested her.
She is a lawyer and a civil rights activist, my guess is that being a civil rights activist is in line with her activity as a lawyer.
And I doubt very much she did anything illegal.
Didn't you know? Free speech is dead, and now saying mean things against this regeme is illegal now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekima_Levy_Armstrong
Just so you know who is in this picture. No, this does not have the negative impact for her that you are suggesting.
Tell that to John Lewis or MLK.
They probably think the sobbing makes people scared. It makes the arrested look weaker, regretful and vulnerable.
Chin up, shoulders back, still tough, cuz Black don't crack!
How is it embarrassing to be arrested for protesting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekima_Levy_Armstrong
The act of being arrested is not particularly fun. You know, being restrained and walked off like an animal in some sense. Depends what it’s for in general. But it’s the public image of it. And then the repercussions of having to deal with follow up court work, possible jail time and it being a future talking point of a potential employer. It’s just not really something to be proud of.
That is a rule in general, with exceptions of course.
But my point stands, that the act is embarrassing enough already, especially if it’s publicized. So having your face edited to make it look even more humiliating is worse.
Being an inconvenience is not the same as embarrassing.
Which is probably near zero has her case will likely be dismissed, but again she is a lawyer.
Enforcing the law is embarrassing? Breaking the law is embarrassing.
And my point isn’t that she was necessarily breaking the law. I’m simply stating that it’s already an embarrassing enough act to be restrained and then on top of that have images of you in a vulnerable state circulate around the internet.
I’m not saying it’s perfect. It has its share of flaws, but rules and law create order. I’m not a simp for US law, but without it, injustice would run even more rampant. If you claim to love justice then you must also, by principle, be in favor of some sort of law system that enforces it.
What would you argue are the differences between rules and laws in society? I use the two interchangeably as I believe them to mean the same thing.
Slavery was legal, you know... Was flaunting the Fugitive Slave Act also embarrassing?