Yes, this is the world that happens when you let fascists take over.
We should have been uniting in the streets on day-one, instead of retreating to Lemmy, to discord, to reddit subcommunities to feel smug and argue with each other over which brand of socialism is better.
I hate the people who have done this to my country. But I am also livid at the lazy fucks who thought one march with a sign was going to change anything, or worse, the ones who stayed inside and played video games and said “nothing ever happens.”
You all hold a piece of accountability here. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US.
I did shit and copped a life ruining restraining order.
Now what?
I sat at home, my life is still pretty fucked
My life was going to be fucked regardless because I was stupid enough to be born trans in a “we love het men raping children” state.
Feeling pretty helpless tbh. Protesting just seems like it’s going to fuck me more.
Sadly I’d have to ask you to be more specific on which state.
Can you help me understand what more I can do? I’m in California in a pretty conservative county.
Living in California already puts you ahead in terms of personal security, being one of the largest economies in the world, the liberal government there is pretty solid. California makes more than enough money to pay for their own political capital, and everything else is going to be lip-service push-and-pull with the administration, but even with things like the National Guard and ICE poking around at times, it will never get too bad there.
But as far as helping your fellow Americans? The best I can advise is get to know the people in your county who are left leaning or liberal, get to know the political landscape better, help campaign for people who align closer to your interests, while knowing all we can do is keep nudging the bar over a tiny bit at a time. I don’t see California turning red or purple anytime soon, but that safety is a product of involvement and vigilance, so talk to your local left/dem political groups or larger ones like Progressive Victory about how best to ensure that vigil stays strong.
The other thing we should ALL be doing is not buying so much shit, and saving money like the goddamn apocalypse is coming, because it sort of is. Reduce spending on luxuries like doordash, new games and movies, streaming services, vices like pot and alcohol, new devices like phones or other “cool” new things that constantly shower on us to keep us forking over our only real political power, which is our cash/labor.
Lastly, I think on the left we broadly have a serious problem with introversion. And I don’t even mean just teenagers who are anxious and stressed by making small-talk (but we have to work on that too) but I mean we spend too much time locked into niche groups that support our feelings and give us validation for avoiding community. Go make a community, it doesn’t have to be huge but more effort in getting out and socializing and engaging with others will go a long way towards forging connections and safety in numbers.
We will LOSE EVERYTHING if we don’t work harder on rebuilding community, reclaiming the flag, and sorry to say it, but taking up arms. The only other kind of political capital as strong as money, is physical strength. This is why Trump, despite having ZERO qualifications or expertise in picking his own navel, has MASSIVE power, because he tightly controls our country’s most militant assholes. Like it or not, that small segment is worth more than the larger segment because force = power.
If you spend time online, as hard and gross as it is, I highly encourage everyone here to spend more time reading conservative subreddits, social media groups and websites. We do not win if we don’t understand what the average liberal/conservative feels about the world. Don’t try to butt heads, learn to leverage emotions to get people to shift stances a little at a time. Don’t try to topple monoliths, just chip at cracks.
At this point? Anything that disrupts the current regime, but my lawyer would not like me to go further.
In all honesty you are now in a situation of a resistance, the current situation will not be undone with anything peaceful. The time is past fixing this within the system.
What can we do? Those of us who have been going to every protest, who are fighting locally against what is going on? Where do we go? We need an organizer, but no one has stepped up to reign everyone in. I would do it but i’ve got extreme paranoia and am possibly a schizoid. (Im also a minority who would get deported on top of that)
Do that hard thing you know you need to do, whatever it is. Maybe it’s going to the doctor to talk about your anxiety, maybe it’s arguing with your insurance company about what they’re not doing for you, maybe it’s going to your state DES office and seeing what programs or assistance you qualify for - or maybe talking to your family/friends about getting whatever assistance you need to make whatever life changes you need to make to get enough of a handle on your personal issues.
Your language tells me you have some issues but likely have no formal diagnosis or treatment plan. You’re not good to us if you’re not healthy. Get healthy, take care of yourself, put money, food and medical supplies aside. Get a gun if you can legally own one. (before your diagnosis, that may get in the way. Just go to a gun-show you barely need to do anything.) About two weeks food and water minimum, everyone should have that. If we see civil disruptions you may have a hard time getting to your grocery stores.
Now, let’s say you start to get a handle on your mental health. What can you do as an individual? First thing is stop spending money on luxuries/reframe your lifestyle and what comforts you feel you depend on. We have to start starving the monsters by ending our addiction to comforts like fast food, junk food, new video games, movies and subscription services, doordash, pot and alcohol, new devices like phones. We will never unify enough people to organize a General Strike in the US, but we can start punching the greedy liches in the face by keeping our money out of their hands.
Then, again assuming you can push yourself to do what you need to start getting healthier, you need to expose yourself to people more. You need to socialize. You need to get to know your neighbors, you need to hold a yard-sale as pretense for meeting people, you need to learn how to make small-talk and make people like you. Then you get involved in local events, community shit, county and city meetings, go boo loudly at your local [R] comptroller or congressperson, get to know who in your community would support local regime change, help endorse and push new candidates who actually represent you.
None of this is going to be fast, and it will take a long time, maybe years. Maybe we don’t have that long.
But it’s all we have.
No charismatic progressive leader is going to appear and lead everyone to some glorious tomorrow. Even if they did, we still have to live next to the millions of tuned-out dipshits who think they’re winning.
We HAVE to abandon that fantasy that something is going to happen or someone is going to come, it’s child-like. It’s on you whether you like it or not. We ALL have to get more involved and less afraid, and if we can’t, we have to tackle whatever is keeping us from being involved and less afraid. (Hint: it’s your phone and/or PC.)
Focusing on ones mental health is a good place to start but imma be real I checked out immediately after the “you’re no good to us if you’re not healthy.”
That is a fucking wild thing to say to someone .
This is why we don’t win. Someone like you in every crowd who has to distract everyone from targets and goals with “But were we gentle enough while staging the fight for our survival?”
I hope the fucking CAMP GUARDS will be so much kinder to the person I replied to, maybe they’ll have a longer, healthier future working the fields with everyone else who is either not-white and has mental health conditions. I’m sure we’ll all be FINE.
Dual power and mutual aid. Construct alternative social support systems that don’t rely on the current gatekeepers because you KNOW the powers that be who control those gates will slam them shut on us all.
deleted by creator
We are cooked as a country. I didn’t have ww3 on my list but here we go.
The US is just one epicenter, We are cooked as a species.
We could only be so lucky, we’re going to circle the drain for a long time before this turd finally disappears.
We’re all in for a very long, very bumpy ride.
This doesn’t mean 2 men.
This has #2 and #3 in a list, but where is #1? 🤔
The implication should be obvious, the dictators and oligarchs are working towards erasing critical history…
Well, that one is backwards. It’s usually an E. Because an ampersand is originally the latin word “et” (meaning “and”). If you use an epsilon (ε) instead of an E and then cross it, it’s a stylized “et”.
And now you’re burdened with more useless knowledge!
Indeed I learned a thing today.
Did you know that only 27% of social media users know how to sharpen a pencil?
According to recent research, 89℅ of modern AI users know how to sharpen their finger in a pencil sharpener…
Today’s lesson brought to you by the letter &
/s
Why is this relevant at all?
2 Black men were found hung. That’s the fucking thing that matters.
Well shit, you coulda at least been decent enough to tell me they found a second hanging body. ☹️
I’m actually from Mississippi, though not from that region. Sorry I wasn’t aware of the second deceased, my bad. First I’m hearing about that…
There is no context of time, there have been many thousands of people hung over time.
Is there a specific context I’m supposed to take this as?
Stop playing as a bot without telling us you’re a bot. Have you considered using your bot brain to go look further, or do you require further instructions?
Bruh, I left this thread yesterday after I was informed there was a second hanging at/near Delta State University.
Kinda fucking awkward to learn that news from Lemmy, considering I live in Mississippi, but you gotta consider that Mississippi is actively trying to censor our internet and news a lot more than most other states.
Sadly, this is still the only source of information I’ve seen regarding a second hanging, they’re damn sure not putting that on our news channels here…
The & symbol they wrote looks like a three I guess. It’s saying that “two Black men were lynched &…”
Yep. That’s how my father wrote his “and” symbols.
Umm, okay. I’ve never seen it written or typed that way before, guess I’ll just have to take your word on it. 🤷
I think of it like a non-cursive &…
The thing is, they wrote it backwards.
All these symbols come from the Latin ‘et’.
huh. that’s the way i have always done it. backwards, apparently.
You don’t have to take my word when Wikipedia exists :) I think this version must be popular with older folks, I have a boomer prof who writes them as shown in the OP image
Okay, then why do they have to describe the character on Wikipedia?
There’s no actual Unicode font with that character?
There’s no reference image scans of that character?
Hell, the one and only one close example is a mirror image.
To me, what I saw on my screen is a number 3 with a couple dots.
Look, I’ve dealt with lead printing press plates, over 3000 fonts on computers, and have proven handwriting forgeries in court.
Yet I’ve never seen the ampersand symbol written, printed or typed in that manner, and Wikipedia doesn’t even seem to have much of any visual evidence of it, just a description…
Holy shit, shut the fuck up.
Holy fuck that shit was unnecessary, that was 2 days ago.
Clearly I already shut the fuck up, you should try doing the same, asshole.
No, seriously, just shut the fuck up you insufferable twat.
Okay, then why do they have to describe the character on Wikipedia?
Tf you want them to do? Link to an interpretive dance on the subject? It’s Wikipedia. They explain shit.
Point is it’s apparently not recognized as a standard Unicode character. I don’t read E and 3 the same way, I’m not dyslexic.
So I saw an unusual character I have never seen before, and wondered what the character’s origins were. What I discovered is that it’s apparently a dyslexic mirror handwritten ampersand of a long lost character typeface or handwriting style.
Initially I thought it was just a custom fancy handwritten 3.
So sue me for never seeing dyslexic mirror graffiti out in the wild before.
Unicode standards don’t say anything about the font.
Point is it’s apparently not recognized as a standard Unicode character
The standard ampersand is
U+0026, and there is also a small ampersand, a full-width ampersand, a turned 180-degree ampersand, and 6 stylized versions that were carryovers from wingdings. It is also significantly older than Unicode, and is a standard key on qwerty keyboards (shift-7)
Cool story.
̗̀ε
Yes, because people like you must have Dyslexia and didn’t see the reverse image I did.
Lmao.
“I was wrong on the internet, so YOU must have a disability to have understood what several other people understood.”
If you had just humbled yourself and said “oh shit, I didn’t know that. I learned something today. Thanks, guys!” then everybody would cheer you on. Have a better attitude, seek self improvement, and you’ll be a much happier person surrounded by pleasant people.
Fair, was focused on messing around with the marks above and below and forgot to double-check. ̗̀𑙓
[Dead-horse beating edit so you’re not getting useless notification spam: I see what you mean, it’s not very consistent between my devices either. Haven’t found a combination that matches, looks good, and shows up correctly across the different systems.]
That isn’t a 3.
Let’s not jump the gun on any rumors yet. Police, for what that’s worth, said there was no evidence of assault on Trey Reed’s body, though his family is rightfully seeking an independent autopsy report. And apparently the second hanging body was a 36-year-old white man.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/09/16/trey-reed-death-delta-university/
Is the timing suspicious? Absolutely. Are the cops being cagey about it? Even if it’s still an ongoing investigation, yes. Although it is Mississippi. We’re not exactly expecting excellence from them.
My point being that we’re getting information at a slow trickle and we’ll have to fucking hound the media to keep these stories in the news cycle, so it’s going to be a good while before we have any idea what happened. Especially with all hands on deck dedicated to making sure everyone has a government-approved reaction to the somehow more important murder.
Even if it’s still an ongoing investigation, yes. Although it is Mississippi
Education is optional in Mississippi.
Police, for what that’s worth, said there was no evidence of assault on Trey Reed’s body
It’s worth approximately jack shit. The guys wearing the badges are the guys wearing the hoods. Mississippi pigs are covering up a lynching, plain and simple.
Police, for what that’s worth, said
Which would be about “nothing” without independent confirmation.
If you still have any trust in the press releases of American cops, let alone those of the worst of ALL states in 2025, you’re fucking delusional.
You’re right about not jumping to CONCLUSIONS, but you’re dead wrong about having even a modicum of trust in the statements of Mississippi cops before we reach any.
That’s why I mentioned that the family is rightfully seeking an independent autopsy report. And my whole last paragraph about how fucked up the whole situation is.
I’m just saying we can’t and shouldn’t be calling it a lynching yet, even if the signs are pointing in that direction. We should absolutely be raising questions and bullying the cops to an acceptable answer.
The standard of evidence for calling it a lynching outside of a court of law has been met IMO.
Let’s call a spade a spade.
A black man found hanging from a tree: no foul play suspected
Statements of the utterly deranged
Can’t it also be a suicide?
How come?
Basic situational understanding.
Your situational awareness is saying that there’s no way this could’ve been a suicide, even though suicide is unfortunately not rare
It’s not rumors, this is an extremely unusual method of suicide, especially for a black man.
It also happened twice in possibly the most racist state, on the same day
And the cops say there’s no foul play. Come on now, there’s jumping to conclusions, and then there’s situations so unlikely they require one hell of an explanation
It also happened previously in June in NY to a black man (tbh who I thought the meme was referencing), Earl Smith, 58, and was ruled a suicide, people didn’t believe it then either:
https://www.wbng.com/2025/06/28/binghamton-community-protests-light-recent-death-black-man-albany/
Personally, I’m with them, timing is extremely suspicious with police having a lot of their force dedicated to ICE efforts instead of investigation. They didn’t even catch CK’s shooter in Utah, with all those cameras etc - so NY and MS wouldn’t surprise me if they were also feeling the staff shortages.
Also since people have been talking about the most recent homeless mass shooting, there was actually one in June in North Portland, 3 separate events with no injuries and he was never caught. And there’s been a LOT of bodies showing up in Portland, especially in the water and highway guard rails.
https://www.kptv.com/2025/06/12/police-say-someone-is-shooting-homeless-people-north-portland/
I think conservatives jacking off to Purge night stuff is behind this. There’s some creepy weirdos who feel like they’ve been let off leash.
This guy is the coroner, so it’s not a ole white boy club thing:
Not saying this isn’t all suspicious, just probably doesn’t play out how people had in mind.
You know black cops are a thing, right? And they’re often extremely racist against black people
It doesn’t matter what color the cop is, or that a coroner isn’t technically a cop. Institutional racism can be a hell of a thing
There’s no internal logic to racism, it’s just like how immigrants tend to be harsher on immigration
This is America, we’re just finally going full “mask off.”
We’re a disgusting disgrace of a country, chock full of Nazis, Nazi apologists, fascist propagandists, and fascist billionaires. I’d argue we never really were anything different, we just had a decent streak of cowards running the show that just wanted to satisfy endless greed without rocking the boat too much. The current bunch relish the chaos, hatred, neck stomping and 40% of the population are absolutely here for it and want more.
It’s only downhill from here. :(
It’s true the only reason the US didn’t go full Nazi in the 30s and 40s was we didn’t like how Germany was invading France and Britain.
Otherwise there was a lot of support for a domestic Nazi party leading to and ethnostate. Perhaps even over all of North America.
Yup… :(
Madison square garden NYC 1939
Really interesting messaging in the banners. “Fight the boycott” … Hmm wonder what was being boycotted in 1939 America, let’s check the internet: Oh just the 1933 anti Nazi boycott.
I think the parallel between that boycott and the Russian sanctions is pretty interesting. Also the parallel between what happened with the annexation of The Sudetenland in the 1930s by Nazi Germany and what is happening with the Crimea region on the Ukraine/Russian border.
I zoomed in a little and guess what I found
Haha well played!
“Wir Sind Alle Inländische Terroristen”
We’re sinned all inland-ish terrorist-N
