• Eugene V. Debs' Ghost ( eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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          5 months ago

          When the constitutional lawyer Barack Obama ran for president, he said that the was against warrentless mass surveillance.

          When Snowden revealed the wide use of the PRSIM and Five Eyes agreements to enable mass surveillance of multiple countries without court order, Obama then had Snowden’s passport revoked while he was looking for political asylum, and said:

          On June 19, 2013, U.S. president Barack Obama, during a visit to Germany, stated that the NSA’s data gathering practices constitute “a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being able to protect our people”.[21]

          Obama didn’t reel in the NSA when it was made public, as a constitutional lawyer because it was trying to stop terrorists. Like how Bush did. Like how Trump did. Like how Biden did. Like how Trump is now.

          They don’t care about you. They want you to think they do. But if they did, they’d end the panopticon state. Obama didn’t even close GitMo.

              • dubyakay ( dubyakay@lemmy.ca ) 
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                5 months ago

                The phrase is “two sides of the same coin”. Meaning exactly what you are saying. That they are both the capitalist party. As opposed to another proverbial coin, that of the socialists, anarchists, Monarchist, etc.

                • SocialistVibes01 ( SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml ) Banned
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                  5 months ago

                  Can’t you guys get neologisms and irony? I KNOW what is the original idiom. HOWEVER, I’m deliberately changing it to mean there isn’t even a simulacrum of difference between Democrats and Republicans. Ah, the eternal marvel of the English language: its breathtaking inability to stray from a pre-written script. No wonder it’s the language of contracts, with every clause so exquisitely, flawlessly delineated. Naturally, people then start behaving as if they’re perpetually executing contracts with one another, forever in hot pursuit of pecuniary advantage. And from that, of course, sprang Common Law, Capitalism, and Imperialism - what a coincidence. It’s just so delightfully easy to build colonies and murder on an industrial scale when the target is nothing more than a number. Precisely because they can’t think beyond greed and individualism, they end up so utterly, pathetically lost the moment they set foot in collectivist countries.

      • eldavi ( eldavi@lemmy.ml ) 
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        5 months ago

        The Hippocritic Oath

        I swear by LinkedIn, “disruption,” and the invisible hand of the market that I will fulfill this oath to the best of my metric-driven ability.

        I will critique my teachers for their lack of personal branding.

        I will inform every patient that their illness is, ultimately, a failure of hustle culture, poor risk management, and not having a diverse investment portfolio.

        I will refuse deadly drugs but will absolutely shame you for buying avocado toast instead of a high-deductible health plan.

        Whatever house I enter, I will come for the sick — and leave a QR code to my Substack explaining how bootstraps could have prevented all of this.

        I will not repeat what I see or hear in private — but I will monetize the general vibe as a case study in “choice architecture.”

        If I keep this oath, may I achieve synergistic growth. If not… well, the market will correct you, not me.

  • Isn’t it ironic how ICE agents wear masks, while scanning everyone else’s faces? Also props to Second Thought for not pushing defeatist mind-poison, because that’s exactly what they want: for us to feel powerless, and making it seem “resistance is futile”.

    • iByteABit ( iByteABit@lemmy.ml ) OP
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      5 months ago

      I was specifically calling out the hypocrisy of the USA’s excuses to do imperialism. With that said though, it is now clear as day that while China has the ability to do what the USA is doing technologically, they are using that surveillance more sparingly and for better reasons than the USA. It’s not in China that masked thugs are scanning you with their phones hoping to lock you up in some undocumented place and then either keep you there or send you to a random country away from your family.

      I’m not a fan of mass surveillance in any case, but it’s just so hilariously ironic that the same people who fearmongered 24/7 in their media about China being this panopticon dystopia, are the same ones now exceeding this in every way imaginable, far surpassing the imagination of fiction like 1984 or Black Mirror.

      • N.E.P.T.R ( Neptr@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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        5 months ago

        China was doing that kinda thing in Hong Kong not that long ago. Killing protestors, disappearing people, attacking journalists and doctors. They just aren’t right now. They are srill that bad.

    • stumu415 ( stumu415@lemmy.zip ) 
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      5 months ago

      I lived and worked in both the US and China. My life was infinitely better in China. You don’t even notice the cameras but what you do notice is that I can go to my café, leave my electric scooter unlocked with helmet on, get a table outside, put my laptop on it and then go inside to order coffee without any fear anything will get stolen. In the parks there are public coat racks and people put their jackets, backpacks and other stuff on without any hesitation. You feel safe at night walking down the street by yourself. This feeling I rarely have anywhere else. Delivery packages are left outside and gathered sometimes outside of the compound on the public walkway without being stolen.

      Now whenever I travel to Europe, I have to totally reverse this behavior otherwise all my shit will be gone. That to me is awful.