Luigi Mangione shouts a message to the American people on his way to court:

“This is completely unjust and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience.”

  • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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    1 day ago

    Lenin’s coup needed 40k people. The Russian Republic had a population of 161 million people.

    On a happier note, a single university protest against Stalin’s imperialism spiralled into events that briefly established an independent democratic socialist Hungary free from Soviet-Russian domination.

    The question, if it gets to societal collapse and revolutions, is not “how many people can Trump get to vote for him”, but “what military strength can he get to Washington on short notice”. And it doesn’t matter “who has the guns”. It’s the US. Everyone can get guns at a moment’s notice.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Are you really comparing the conditions Americans are living under to the feudalist absolute monarchy under the Czar?

      People in living memory were serfs at the time.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        Lenin didn’t coup the Tsars, he couped the fledgling Russian Republic. The Tsar has been in prison for more than six months by then.

        Nevertheless, the point still stands, a small amount of people can successfully overturn a government. If you need a more recent example, Jan 6th almost succeeded. Imagine if they were just as organized as Lenin’s people.

        Not saying it would be a good thing.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Jan 6th almost succeeded.

          That is utter nonsense. January 6th disrupted something that was essentially ceremonial.

          • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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            24 hours ago

            All of our institutions are ceremonial. If everything went to plan there, and they only did not due to sheer incompetence, they would have blown up the capitol building and would have massacred congress people.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              24 hours ago

              Where on Earth did you hear the plan was to blow up the Capitol Building?

              First of all, do you know how many explosives that would take?

              • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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                11 hours ago

                It’s common knowledge at this point that explosives were planted, here is the wiki link for the sources. Of course, the point was not the demolition of the building complex, but the staging of an attack.

                In 1933, one chamber of the Reichstag was set on fire, which ended in the mass arrests of communist opposition members, and the solidifying of Hitler’s power in Germany.

                Is it a stretch that bombs planted at the RNC building of all places would have served a similarly good excuse to arrest Trump’s political enemies? Just replace the communists with “antifa”.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  10 hours ago

                  Yes, I know a handful of pipe bombs were found. You could not possibly destroy a giant stone building with them.

                  Have you ever even been to the Capitol building?

                  • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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                    10 hours ago

                    I’m sorry, but can you reread my comment past the first sentence? I’m saying they were not there to destroy the whole place wholesale, they were there, so the bomb attack could be spun into whatever they wanted afterwards.

                    Like the Reichstag fire that did not actually burn the whole Reichstag either, just one room.

      • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Many revolutions and massive nation changes have happened so quickly that many never saw them coming. The Berlin wall coming down, the Duvalier’s and Assad’s reigns ending are three in relatively recent memory.

        The thing is that the rich and powerful often miss the signs, if for no other reason than they fundamentally believe they are untouchable … because they are, until they aren’t.

        What I find amazing is that the rich and powerful continue to be blind to the history of inequality and how many elites are killed, been overthrown and/or have to beg for asylum in foreign nations.

          • toast@retrolemmy.com
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            22 hours ago

            The rich and powerful would also have won if Harris had managed to get elected. You may really care which party wins, but I doubt most of our oligarchs do.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              22 hours ago

              Oh yes, things will be totally the same without Lena Khan being in the U.S. government. You’re so, so right.

              • toast@retrolemmy.com
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                20 hours ago

                Oh, things will be different for us. The rich, however, will be just fine. They’ll still gatekeep who can run for president. They’ll still actively co-write legislation. They’ll still buy lobby legislators and cozy up with regulators. We’re living in a second guilded age. We didn’t just vote our way out of the last one

                  • toast@retrolemmy.com
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                    20 hours ago

                    OK, let’s just say she’s a hero. I’ll say it for you. Lena Khan is a hero everyone!

                    With that out of the way, look at the last, say, five decades. Look at income disparity over that time period. Look at wages. Look at the health of labor unions. Look at how much more money political campaigns cost now. This has all been happening under Republican and Democratic administrations. Both parties have been moving to the economic right.

                    You can find heroes like Khan throughout this time period. Point them out if you like. Just don’t ignore the fact that these trends continued despite their best efforts.

                    I just think you need to recognize that sometimes civic engagement requires more than just a vote