Over half my life ago when I was a religious fundamentalist in the church of Christ, I led this song for the congregation on a Wednesday night service since it was in our hymnnal. I liked the history that came with it: it was a song about the faithful triumphing over oppression.

A few weeks later, it was fully censored in all of the books. In my naïvete I hadn’t realized that there was still a whole bunch of Confederate sentiment in Texas. It had never occurred to me that the song might be controversial.

So he targeted the people that the GOP propaganda machine told him to. Must be a ‘lone wolf.’

Really puts the “anal” in analysis, if true.

More proof that the War on “Drugs” is largely an authoritarian criminalization of untreated mental health issues.

We shouldn’t lock people up for addiction any more than we should lock people up over depression.

I hate the euphemism of “self-deport.”

Let’s call it what it really is: ICE threatened to lock him up and send him to an undisclosed location if he didn’t flee the country.

Cops and pseudoscience go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

For more examples, see “bite mark analysis,” “911 call analysis,” “blood spatter analysis,” roadside drug testing with known false-positives, and even fingerprints (once the gold standard) have up to a 20% error rate.

And that’s not even getting into how their methodology is exactly backwards: they have a claim that they set out to prove, but do no work to disprove what they already believe.

In my opinion, stupid is an aggravated form of ignorant; it’s an aggressive, proud refusal to change one’s mind despite having the clear contradictions in their beliefs presented to them.

They believe the falsehoods because it benefits them to do so. Importantly, all of their friends believe it too, so if they stop then they’ll lose their support and social network. It’s the same kind of thought control techniques that cults exploit.

He’s also the caricature of the dumb micromanaging boss that rips off his workers, but that’s not a deal-breaker for white folks either; in fact, the majority apparently approve.

Americans are just stupid, and it’s easy to whip us into a moral panic.

Reactionaries see the Constitution in the same way they view the Bible: they get to make up insane justifications for doing the exact opposite of what it says.

Subscribe to different comms. There’s a lot of creativity on here, look at !artshare@lemmy.world

When you ride alone, you ride with MechaHitler.

From the same article:

The United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova.

According to a ruling by US District Judge Kenneth Marra in February 2019, “from between about 1999 and 2007, Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused more than 30 minor girls…at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and elsewhere in the United States and overseas.” The ruling goes on to describe a child sex ring: “In addition to his own sexual abuse of the victims, Epstein directed other persons to abuse the girls sexually. Epstein used paid employees to find and bring minor girls to him. Epstein worked in concert with others to obtain minors not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others.”

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Notably, the extra rights are only given to churches. Other non-profits are still restricted in their political activity.

It doesn’t get much buzzier than a crumhorn consort.

To look at a historical analogue:

The system of government was formed whereby leading Nazi officials were forced to interpret Hitler’s speeches, remarks and writings on government policies and turn them into programs and legislation. Hitler typically did not give written orders; instead he communicated them verbally, or had them conveyed through his close associate, Martin Bormann. He entrusted Bormann with his paperwork, appointments, and personal finances; Bormann used his position to control the flow of information and access to Hitler. Hitler’s cabinet never met after 1938, and he discouraged his ministers from meeting independently.

Hitler’s leadership style was to give contradictory orders to his subordinates and to place them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped with those of others, to have “the stronger one [do] the job”. In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power.

The process allowed more unscrupulous and ambitious Nazis to get away with implementing the more radical and extreme elements of Hitler’s ideology, such as antisemitism, and in doing so win political favour. It was protected by Joseph Goebbels’ effective propaganda machine, which portrayed Hitler as a heroic and infallible leader. Further, the government was portrayed as a dedicated, dutiful and efficient outfit. Through successive Reichsstatthalter decrees, Germany’s states were effectively replaced by Nazi provinces called Gaue.

It’s definitely not a cult though.

Pack a book. Everything from hammock backpacking to week-long glamping festivals, I’ve never regretted bringing one along.

Bath is the coolest city I’ve ever been to; it started my lifelong interest in Roman history.

To illustrate:

As a slogan in American political discourse, “America First” originated from the nativist American Party in the 1850s. The motto has been used by both Democratic and Republican politicians in the United States. At the outbreak of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson used the slogan to define his version of neutrality, as did newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. The motto was also chosen by Republican Senator Warren G. Harding during the 1920 presidential election, which he won.

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) used the phrase at the organization’s peak in the 1920s, when racist, xenophobic sentiment was widespread; it informed many of their members who ran for political office. The Immigration Act of 1924 sponsored by Washington U.S. representative Albert Johnson proved to legislate xenophobia and white supremacy, excluding immigrants on the basis of ethnicity and national origin in an effort to preserve white racial demographics. Johnson’s leading role in the immigration restriction bill elicited strong support from the KKK.