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And an ok car
A nice reliant automobile?
A succulent Chinese meal?
I don’t think they make those any more
If you have a million dollars
I said ok, not reasonable
Ah yes the empathy of soldiers that had a part in murdering my family and the empathy of brutalizing Africa then using food aid to destroy their local agriculture to ensure they never become food secure.
USians are so disconnected from the whole world they think this is a wholesome comic
People are slamming this cartoon, but it is highlighting the past foreign policy stance of displaying Soft Power, which is a positive long-term objective to help rehabilitate America’s image as militaristic.
But these dumb MAGA Apes think that’s for pussies, and it’s more fun to beat others into submission, undoing decades of any positive forward progress.
One of the reasons that the rest of the world hates us is because while we claim that we aren’t all really as bad as MAGA, it rings hollow because we didn’t do anything to avoid the MAGA threat a second time. Imagine what we would have thought if they had let Hitler escape punishment, and then regain power a few years later? Right now, that’s what we look like to the rest of the world, and rightfully so.
If we ever want to restore any respect to this country, we will have to deal with MAGA decisively before this can be over. The rest of the world, and our own country, needs that.
Take my upvote, you are right on the money.
That is a concept I struggle with, although I totally agree with you. But how do eliminate MAGA without resorting to fascism yourself? To be clear, MAGA needs to be eliminated. Just don’t know how.
Tolerance is a social contract. Those who would not grant it to others are not protected by it.
We don’t have to tolerate the intolerant.
They are a proven, unapologetic, and ongoing National Security Threat, who have openly, demonstrably engaged in treason, sedition, insurrection, terrorism, extortion, espionage, corruption, pedophilia, murder, and more. We have all seen numerous examples of every one of those crimes.
All politicians take an oath to protect America from national security threats, foreign or domestic, and MAGA definitely falls under the category of domestic threat. Why shouldn’t an organization like that be prohibited from existing, recruiting, and promoting?
By beating them to a pulp Mussolini style
I fully believe that empathy and compassion are evolutionary traits.
I would agree (not an evolutionary biologist). Game theory at the end of the day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And that for one to become a billionair, one must be completely lacking empathy and compassion.
lol those are some pretty bizarre examples of empathy. Whoever drew this is living in la-la land. delulu
I’m aware that the role of the US on the international stage is often not that of the good guys, but I’m not sure how you could argue that USAID and taking care of injured veterans are not examples of empathy.
Keep in mind that there are voters in the US who think that we should take care of our veterans, but somehow agree with Musk when he says empathy is bad. I think it’s important to show those people some examples of empathy that they would support.
The left in the US is broadly so “america bad” that they’ve thrown away their only shred of actual political capital, nationalism, which can well be expressed through desire to actually make America less bad and have a country worth having pride in.
I know we’re pretty far from a country that anyone with half a brain can feel pride in, but our bigger problem is that the bulk of the population has less than half a brain so we need to work within their worldviews.
As long as the left can’t stop lecturing and shaming, we’re going to keep losing ground to people who know how to validate and appease liberal sensibilities.
edit: cry harder, you threw away the flag and America’s actual political capital: the midwit working class liberal masses, they look at you burning the flag that keeps them comfortable, then look at the right-wing nutfucks praying to the flag that keeps them comfortable and says “Hmn, I think I know who has my back.” You have legitimate reasons to hate America, but as Americans we have the responsibility to figure out how to push the country towards a better future. We haven’t done that in a remotely intelligent way. Again, look at what the current state of things are. We are fighting for a country nobody believes we even want. What power is there in that? You kids need to understand power on a much more practical and realistic level.
imagine looking at all the shit your country has done (way before trump too) and blaming the left for it
you can’t make this shit up
If you take that kind of persecution complex away from this conversation instead of realizing that we need to rethink our approach and work on finding actual political power, you do deserve all the blame.
well maybe I have a persecution complex because my country was literally mentioned by your orange ass after Venezuela’s invasion
but thanks for blaming me a mexican living next to the new nazis I guess it is pretty spot on for a US citizen to assume what everyone else needs to do
They’ll ramp up their cringy “good guy USA, remember when we were amazing examples of empathy and world aid?” material.
Their current events have made their image even worse, but their entire culture is based around this illusion of being a shield for the world, so they’ll ramp up cringe production to try and save it.
They’ll ramp up their cringy “good guy USA, remember when we were amazing examples of empathy and world aid?” material.
Who is the “they” here who are doing this? The author of the cartoon who is making a blatant anti-Rogan, anti-Musk message? I feel we’ve crossed some wires if we think getting median-voting, semi-patriotic liberals to reject authoritarian propaganda is more harmful than good.
Edit: the difference between people like MAGA and people who want a better world and equality and empathy, is that MAGA rejects nuance and smarter, less comfortable perspectives of the world, including the capacity to shift perspectives to people you don’t relate with. What are YOU guys avoiding looking at in your daily rage-fueled scrolling? What nuance and perspective are you denying because it makes you uncomfortable? We can be the adults in the room and understand a thing without subscribing to a thing.
There are multiple victims of war pictured here and the comic doesn’t seem to notice or care why that is. It celebrates it even, as empathy, which is such a crushing example of how warped perspectives can become.
Yah this is the general perception of Liberal America, and really the liberal populations of many countries who are just raised on propaganda and don’t really think systemically. IE: the bulk of all people.
This comic SHOULD be a window into how the average, median voter thinks and feels about the country, if we understood and accepted this common perception instead of cringing at it we could make a lot better progress in actually getting people to recognize the problems with the military and the state, but for most people this is patriotism and they don’t think “america bad” every time they see a soldier missing a limb.
A comic like this does more net good than all the lecturing and guilting people for being involved in a corrupt system, and I still don’t know who the “They” are.
How is it a net good if the average person is just going to see it and reinforce their views?
Because the punchline, not the content before it. It’s telling the average American with an ambivalent at worst view of the US international presence and military (and there are a LOT of military families in the US, we need to understand this to move politics) will see a cartoon like this and it will plant an idea in their head that we can’t trust the shit the Joe Rogan promotes and that Elon Musk is just bad. This is what we want, this about the most we can fucking hope for in the US, the average American has no clue what’s going on.
I beg people to actually read the 2024 exit polling, I promise you, no matter how bad you think the situation is, it’s worse.
Right but maybe if we want to shit on Elon Musk and Joe Rogan we can do so by showing actual examples of empathy rather than glorifying something evil and unempathetic.
Probably in this context: the ruling class.
The lack of class awareness here in the comic being why the use of cultural hegemony is lost.
This comic is pure unapologetic propaganda and paints your military as smiling aid giving friends.
Fuck off.
The results of people like Musk and Rogan influencing people to let a fascist dictatorship take control of that same military is going to be a lot fucking worse for you.
Get fucking smarter.
Are you slow? Do you think I’m defending Musk and Rogan?
I’m saying your military - and your country - is a piece of shit force of evil in this world, and has always been, regardless of your idiot in chief. Any comic painting it as smiling empathetic friends is propaganda.
I can’t be any more clear than this.
And I’m saying view it through the lens of the average American liberal who wants their military to be this image, this is what they think it is, this is what they want it to be, and forces like Musk and Rogan are trying to influence them away from this.
You are in your rights to hate the US military, many of us with any shred of understanding about the world do, but this comic is a window into American minds at large, and needs to be understood as a piece representing the average American starting to turn on the current narrative that would see you, and your country, wherever you are, harmed far worse than anything we’ve done before.
No. And that’s exactly the problem.
You think fostering this narrative over your military is safer/better than the alternative, but it is under this malicious narrative that you’re happily delivering aid that you’ve invaded and sabotaged a lot of countries, all with thunderous applause from your own populace.
but this comic is a window into American minds at large, and needs to be understood as a piece representing the average American starting to turn on the current narrative that would see you, and your country, wherever you are, harmed far worse than anything we’ve done before.
BOTH of these narratives harm my country and many others. Both of them. Do not attempt to take a moral high ground because your version of your military is got sunshine and rainbows. It’s the same fucking deal regardless of the democrat or republican in power, one party is just much more open about it than the other.
This aimed at Liberal America, they eat this kind of thing up and we have to stop cringing every time someone says “America not that bad” and lecturing people. They have a vision for what they want America to be, and for them dismembered veterans getting basic medical care is more good than bad. I won’t try to make it make sense because it requires dumbing down. Which is something we also have to learn to do.
Nationalism moves nations, it’s pure political capital, it’s why Trump won and is now ruining our world, because he has the support of fucking armed nationalists.
You don’t have to understand or like the theme, but if it moves median, tuned-out people against people like Rogan and Musk, on their own level, it will only help. They sure as shit don’t care about social issues, most people don’t, and the sooner we understand that, the sooner we can start actually shaping a world that respects social issues.
The strip stops working when it shows Joe Rogan with a surprised face instead of mindlessly agreeing with whatever corporate grifter he has in front of him at any given moment.
Joe Rogan always has a surprised face. He’s just totally clueless all the time. That’s why he’s so gullible.
Oh my god I’ve never seen this. So good.
Ah yes, the overflowing empathy of the military.
The last hope for America is drawing in the average liberal voter who is tuned out and doesn’t care about social issues or whatever things our military has done or not done in the past.
I would love people to spend a little time reading the exit polling from 2024, where they asked people why they voted the way they did. Most answers were completely nonsensical, they were Obama voters, Bernie supporters, voting for Trump because they had no idea what he represented and just wanted to 'try something new" and if you’re screaming right now “we already had a Trump term, what’s wrong with them?” you’re just not a median voter who has 2 hours of free time on Sunday night after the game to browse Tiktok or Facebook for memes and get all their political knowledge there, and barely paid attention to politics before the price of eggs hit a dollar a piece.
If you try to tell these people “America bad” and explain all the ills of the military, they will reject you because they’re not involved, they’re consuming propaganda all day all the time anyway, and they don’t know who to blame their struggle on. The desperate need for Liberal america to preserve stability and comfort is the only remaining check or balance in the US, and if that waivers, if that class of overworked and uninvolved people start actually getting involved, it will push the whole boat back on course. We NEED cartoons like this because it appeals to the people the left has broadly hated for decades and it’s cost us dearly… people who have a vision, even if delusional, for a better America.
Right, and this is Lemmy. I am not sure this is exactly the facebook browsing demographic.
people who have a vision, even if delusional, for a better America.
Knowing the perspective of american liberals is perfectly fine and normal, but that’s not a call to cater to delusion. Delusional visions are not helping.
Delusional visions are not helping.
I disagree, our species largely lives in a state of some kind of delusion or willful ignorance, even you and me.
Learning to understand and use people’s desire to be deluded can move mountains. I mean, the bad guys are doing it and have literally won everything, while we’ve lost everything. Tell me again there’s no lesson to learn here.
I wouldn’t use the word ‘delusion’ then. Delusions are predicated on defying incontrovertible proof of falsehood.
They are a defense mechanism. The desire to be deluded is a fear response. Knowing you’re dealing with fear is one thing, but I think this has to be treated more like addiction intervention than some kind of puppet mastery.
or the USAss
Bizarre post
The fundamental problem of all civilization is not hanging billionaires.
We don’t have to hang them, just put a wealth tax on them before they become billionaires.
But for anyone who has a billion I think it’s OK to take it all, because nobody should be so selfish so they have more than a billion.I’d really rather hang them though…
I’m fundamentally against death penalty, but in the case of Billionaires I believe we can and must do without whatever genetic or psicological traits they carry. We simply can’t afford that level of selfishness to survive as a species.
They’d rather poison the earth and make it uninhabitable than being constrained in any way or form.
Its certainly simpler, though hardly a solution. There’s always more billionaires unless you change the system that created them.
Tax.
Its not complicated. It might take a few goes to get it just right but what we have now is pathetic.I agree, but also…There are famously ways to avoid taxes. You need a backup plan when taxation doesn’t work. And remember, once someone becomes trully wealthy, they’re above the law.
I don’t think those ways mattered as much back when the top marginal rate was approaching 90%.
We could just keep hanging them.
Tax them, give them a choice, and if they choose…poorly, then hang them.
I bet you if ceos start erm, falling down due to high speed objects that may affect brain functions , things get changed fast
Pretty sure that you’d have less and less once you start hanging them, but of course, I am not an expert (yet).
I mean would you want to become a billionaire if you knew you’d end up hanging?
I’m definitely for a change of the system too, but in the meantime there always more rope too.
Which solved for example all problems in all countries who ever went into a killing frenzy, see the monument to equality that is France.
You belong into (at least) therapy.
I won’t stand in your way. I am in principle against death penalty, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs.
Yeah they think they’re so great and untouchable. Let them find out they’re mortal and fallible.
It’s the same kind of “simple solution”, i.e. eradication of your enemies which the radical right Nazi fucks love so much. I hope that’s some food for thought, but you don’t seem particularly hungry for that.
That signature American bloodthirst seems to be up your alley though.
That signature American bloodthirst
Ah, yes, because it was clearly Americans that perpetrated the French and Bolshevik revolutions
There’s no way you think I said that 😂. Seriously, you can’t be this level of stupid, I refuse to believe it. You’re a troll.
I mean holy shit, American reading comprehension meets their murder boner.
The problem is hierarchies. The entire point of feudalism was to create a caste system where the ruler of each segment won’t be touched by the people below them. That’s exactly what modern society by and large looks like.
Until everyone’s equal, no one is. Hierarchical systems are antithetical to peace and equality.
And this repeats in a lot of places, you can see it on almost any company or family
The thing is that we already have a lot of billionaires. We do not to get rid of those before preventing more being created, because they are not going to give up being billionaires voluntarily.
More and more I’m thinking we really need a wealth tax. Not because the government needs the money - the government literally makes their own money, they can create as much of it as they want - but because I think a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion. Plus, once people get over a certain level of wealth, the chances of it seriously negatively affecting them psychologically seem to go up considerably. Many, if not most, billionaires are just weird, creepy, disturbed wackos. I don’t think it’s good for them or for society.
I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to capping individual wealth at $999 million. Another option might be to set the maximum at a percentage of GDP, maybe something like 0.01% of GDP. I think that would put the cap at just over $3 billion. That’s still an astronomical amount of money, and there would still be billionaires but not the mega, stupid billionaires.
a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion.
Billionaires are undermining democracy, which already is a huge problem and against the values of a country that wants to be democratic.
Yes most billionaires end up wackos, which makes it even worse that they have so much power.
IMO you can add an extra zero to the decimal places to make it 300 million. 1 billion is IMO already to much.
But I wouldn’t make it a hard limit, just incrementally bigger tax percentage the higher you get.I wouldn’t make it a hard limit, just incrementally bigger tax percentage the higher you get
That’s a fun idea. Like yeah it’s possible for you to become the first trillionaire, but you’ll be getting taxed at 99.999%. It almost encourages innovation, in a way, because now billionaires have to figure out how to keep all that money despite incredible taxation. Only the people with truly novel, math-bending ways of generating value would be able to be that wealthy (or perhaps more likely, just people exploiting loopholes I haven’t thought of…)
IMO you can add an extra zero to the decimal places to make it 300 million.
Sounds good to me.
More and more I’m thinking we really need a wealth tax. Not because the government needs the money - the government literally makes their own money, they can create as much of it as they want - but because I think a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion.
This is literally what the inheritance tax is for, so there’s precedent.
Of course, they piss and moan about that too, but I don’t give a shit and neither should anyone else.
No, it has to be much lower than that. People need to feel like that kind of wealth is utterly unobtainable and shameful.
Even $1,000,000,001 is too much. I’d probably cap it somewhere closer to $10m, if we have to use money.
We have so much stigma around being poor. I would probably cry myself to death out of joy if I woke up in a world where people felt shame for hoarding wealth.
There was this British yt speaking about the societal changes and she said “rich people invented homelessness and they’ve been mad about it ever since”. Back in the medieval Times, humility was a virtue and priests made vows of poverty.
Yeah, I saw that same video. What is so incredible is how it completely destroyed wages for workers that the average worker in 1450 wouldn’t make the same until 1850 or so.
A short drop and a sudden stop would solve that problem for sure.
Billionaires are just a symptom of the corrupt system. You cannot oppose billionaires with opposing the system that creates them.
It’s really not effectively managing selfishness.
Because we have too much empathy for them?
Empathy is the best thing that anyone would ever have. Seriously!
Cheesy AI-looking comic glazing the US empire, what could go wrong?
Hitler believes that compassion was weakness and a crime against nature. Sound familiar?
I never understood why they ended USAID. It has been such a fantastic tool for destabilizing non-allies, so democrats and republicans alike should love it. And aside from that, it also did some actual good stuff like medical aid, so even progressives like it. It seems like such a win win, yet here we are. Is it just incompetence?
The right ended USAID because the right hates the thought of helping others
They quite literally CANNOT compute empathy, they’re narcissistic apes who only care about themselves
Oi Don’t speak of apes like that
The GOP was putting out a lot of bullshit about how the US spends so much money on other countries and doesn’t help people at home to get votes for a long time. Eventually some people that actually believed the bullshit got into power and killed it.
Really USAID was about soft power. The US provides aid and that allowed the US the threaten to cut off aid if a country didn’t go along with US interests. Way cheaper than threatening to use military force to get your way.
USAID had a lot of problems and definitely could’ve been made a lot more efficient. But eliminating it was a stupid move.
In many places China stepped in when USAID was gone. Not because of altruism but because China wants that soft power the US abandoned.
Yes, it was incompetence.
The obsession with hard power is their undoing. If your only means of coercion is shoving a gun against their head, it makes it very, very easy for the coerced to say ‘fuck off’ and ally themselves with your enemies. Chinese soft power is something that the USSR only dreamed of having but could never achieve.
They want brown people to die.
Yeah, and destabilizing regions with brown people in them is a very effective way of doing that, hence my confusion.
no they want to see them die as a direct result of their giant penises pulling the boom boom trigger
The destruction of USAID killed around 60,000 people in just a few months and could kill over 30 million over the course of several years due to the lack of basic (and extremely cheap) care.
As far as I am concerned, any bitching they claimed about the death toll of communism needs to be shut down with simply that.
I thought VA regularly makes life hard for soldiers?
Yes, if you know anyone in the military, the best possible thing you can tell them is get your disability rating BEFORE you get out. If anyone tells you it’s fine to wait or they’ll help you after you get out or whatever, holy shit ignore them.
If they say “But I don’t have any disability”, tell them “Yes you do.”
Dude better never comes close to me, or i might loose my empathy
