#U.S. problems

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[sher-ee]

THE NEXT VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

Governor Tim Walz

PS he has a cat too.

[brw]

"but hamas is getting funded by extremist islamic hate groups!" do you think the U.S. government and military giving funding for israeli's war efforts against palestinians is a morally neutral and inherently righteous body that had no influence in the politics of southwest asia as a global colonial superpower. do you really think anything you can say about the people resisting oppression can't be said about the oppressors.

[breelandwalker]

Books Bans Are Bullshit

If anyone needs to have a ready-made clapback for conversations about the ethics surrounding bans on queer literature, feel free to put on your history cap and remind your opponent that the Comstock Laws, which are the basis for current arguments for banning books on the basis of "moral issues," were the brainchild of a man who hated women and books, attempted to ban the provision of anatomy textbooks to medical students, attempted to trap multiple companies which provided "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material through mail order, opposed civil liberties so violently that it landed him in JAIL, and was made so uncomfortable by nudity that he attempted to sue a department store for the brief nudity of their mannequins during merchandise changes.

Anthony Comstock was a fucking loser and so are the jackholes still clinging to his rhetoric.

Educate yourselves, my darlings. Then go forth and eviscerate.

[lookninjas]

Been seeing a lot of discourse about this going around today (for some reason), so for the record:

I live in a place north of the 45th parallel. Our average temperatures for December range between 24 and 32 degrees fahrenheit, or -4 to 0 degrees celsius.

It was 56 F/ 13.3 C on December 25th.

That should worry you. It definitely worries me.

[mistprints]

9 to 5 is an insane amount of the day spent working. We just aren’t being paid enough to work fewer hours because we aren’t paid what our work is worth. Bigger companies hide behind small ones with the “we can’t all afford to pay workers fairly” excuse. Well then the business fails at being profitable because workers’ wages are not margins you can cut to be profitable.

And then the big corporations spend obscene amount of money bribing politicians to make sure things stay this way: that minimum wage stays below cost of living so people are forced to work often multiple jobs just to survive, keeping them desperate and forced to work jobs with poor wages.

Education advancement is a potential major debt that many people cannot afford or risk even to get into the highest paying industries. Not all school systems are created equal due to budget cuts and poor, outdated standards, putting many students at a disadvantage for college already. People who would be amazing teachers are dissuaded by the state of these schools and the lack of support they get. It is one of the most important jobs of society and much like many vital services, is taken for granted.

We pretend the threat of homelessness is only for people who are “undesirable” and just didn’t want to work when in reality, many people are one missed paycheck away from being out on the street due to predatory housing situations and unchecked landlords that can give as little as a week’s notice for eviction if not less in some places.

“Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is an old saying that’s been twisted. It’s an impossible task. That’s what it means. It’s a tongue in cheek saying that’s been mockingly turned into a political statement and I think the people using it know that people aren’t going to look it up or know this. You cannot pull yourself up by them, you need help.

Society works when we rely on the group. That’s how all civilizations have worked. Others have fallen for not doing this or for doing so poorly with too many people at the bottom of the ladder holding it up (capitalism relies on this to function). Social programs have always been a facet of this and grouping it all into one big negative buzzword drives me insane.

The fire department is a social program. It’s free to call them and it’s paid for by the city because the rich decided that a poorer neighbor’s house fire was a risk to their property and so there should be someone that handles that without costs to an individual that would deter them calling for help. Same with 9-1-1 (unless of course if the person is in the US and needs a personal ambulance ride. Then they’ll charge thousands).

All I’m saying is with the state of the majority of people in the U.S., we could stand to have more support beams to help out before it collapses around us.

People are reaching a breaking point and this stress test of how much they’ll take (costs rising while what you get decreases and wages remaining stagnant; the growing population of homelessness and their solutions being to make homelessness illegal; cuts to people’s rights to their own body by people who are not doctors and should not have anything do to with it but want political points to remain in power by voters who are too uneducated to know better—again, keeping the populous too tired and poorly educated to realize the branching issues with this outside of their narrow-minded ideals they want to force on everyone else) won’t end well.

These problems all branch from a source. That source is always, ultimately, corrupted people in power, driven by money. They are shortsighted and only care about their own benefits. And by letting them, believing their lies and keeping them in power blinded by promises that are at best empty and at worst detrimental, it’s making this world a lot worse to live in for the rest of us. Even if the consequences haven’t reached you directly yet, we are already seeing what happens in this Tragedy of the Commons situation with the greed of a few.

We have to stop people from being able to exploit it. There needs to be laws in place that even the rich are subject to for this to ever work.

[lonestarbattleship]

"Double-O Day Aboard USS NEW YORK (BB-34)"

"A unique angle view during annual inspection of men aboard USS New York, anchored off Hawaii during combined Army and Navy manoeuvres."

Photographed on February 29, 1932 during Fleet Problems XIII.

World Wide Photos: LOS-12081

[eddis-not-eeddis]

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[hylialeia]

can we talk about how health insurance deductibles are like. the evil spawn of satan quite frankly

[littleapocalypsekitten]

*Sees United States Air Force recruiting advertisement on the side of my dash.* "College, Housing Healthcare. We bring it all. You bring you." How dystopian is this? Really? It just made me realize that in order to get the basics for LIVING that it's just accepted, nay even expected, for people to sign up to kill and die. Uggggh. What kind of a Hell-world do we even live in?

[sher-ee]

Imagine living this afraid of everything, this detached from reality every day.

MAGA is so bad for your mental health.

Woman at Trump’s Town Hall today says we need Trump back because children are terrified in schools because they’re putting litter boxes in the bathrooms.

[theghostiedyke]

not me seeing the same discourse the land back movement got being repeated for Palestine. 🤨 y'all aren't even trying to think critically.

[tropiyas]

anachronisms have to be one of my favorite joke formats of all time

[ruckis-vandalizes]

Now that it's 3am I'm gonna share memes I did during a fit of art block starring your local cat-dog and frog-thing before I go to bed

[prettyvintageafternoon]

So the man who shot an obstetrician, James Kopp, is now using the overturning of Roe V Wade to get out of jail.

I wish I was joking. It was never about protecting children. It was always about controlling others who can reproduce, and demonizing those with actual medical expertise to help those who are viably fertile.