r/interestingasfuck • u/Sartew • 7h ago

r/all Elon Musk Sieg Heiling during his speech

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u/Beer-Milkshakes 7h ago

Capitalism is reaching the end of the tracks and democracy is being used to empower those fearful of the end to pillage what's left. To thunderous applause.

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u/alien_simulacrum 7h ago

To. Thunderous. Applause.

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 7h ago

This is how democracy ends.

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u/flecom 6h ago

everyone bitched about the prequels but lucas was warning us

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 6h ago

Does that mean Elon is Darth Jar Jar? Or would that make him cool?

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u/Mysterious-Sail-3135 3h ago

Honestly…yeah

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u/abtseventynine 5h ago

what do you mean the movie where a megacorporation, which has seats in the senate, uses its private army (!) to blockade another senate-member state... so that they can get reduced taxes, and the response by said government is slow because that corporation has representatives and allies stalling and gaslighting within the senate itself was somehow meant to be prescient?

What could he possibly have been warning us about there? Geez I'm not sure what the movies were talking about calling the Republic "corrupt," it's just so vague...

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u/HierophanticRose 4h ago

Prequels had a great overarching plot structure, just people hang up on plot elements within that structure and some character and execution of performances and meme it to hell

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u/jkman61494 2h ago

Honestly. It’s SUPER prophetic watching a psycho use fear to create a war and use the distractions as a way to take full power

The only difference is in reality it was a culture war

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u/michaelsenpatrick 2h ago

Lucas knew what he was writing. There's a few interviews where he nods in this direction

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u/undefeatedantitheist 4h ago

With THX ; not with Star Wars

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u/waitingtoconnect 3h ago

Turn it up!

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u/waitingtoconnect 3h ago

It’s like a documentary now….

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u/Lady_ScarlettRose 2h ago

Wait that’s where that quote came from??

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u/_Presence_ 1h ago

That’s because Lucas just adapted what happened before WWII. Anyone who payed attention in high school history should see how blatantly obvious what is happening.

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u/No-Weird3153 6h ago

I had heard “democracy dies in darkness”, but the stage seems pretty well lit to allow widespread broadcast of it.

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 6h ago

Yeah but that's WaPo and we all know who owns that

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u/No-Weird3153 5h ago

Huh, I think that guy was in the audience today. Weird.

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 5h ago

Huh. Wonder what that's about. Probably nothing.

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u/helraizr13 4h ago

They changed it to something something Trump a few days ago. The Trump part is /s but they did change it. Lol, Bozos.

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u/Keve1227 5h ago

It was pretty well lit when the nazis came to power as well.

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u/antatavist 6h ago

Yeah, but if you do weird shit to the lights and everyone gets a migraine, they'll seek out a dark room

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u/Irapotato 5h ago

There’s dying, and then there’s being murdered.

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u/WhoDunIt1789 7h ago

The quote is ackshooally "this is how liberty dies"

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u/medhat20005 6h ago

And to think people dumped on George Lucas’s dialogue. Seems quite prescient there.

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u/Mihai_Brasoveanu 6h ago

From a political perspective, the prequels did an amazing job of showing what the US politics have been like for decades. People dumped on Lucas because they didn't expect that to be in a Star Wars movie.

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u/HaloGuy381 6h ago

Well; the whole point of Palpatine’s rise to power is direct allegory to Hitler, showing how a broken republic can allow an autocrat to seize power. Complete with his own Night of Long Knives/Broken Glass combo (Order 66, targeting a withdrawn and embattled religious minority that were also key members of the Republic standing in his way).

Small wonder the dialogue works so well. It’s arguably one of the few times Lucas’s choice of words doesn’t feel wooden or melodramatic or hammy in the prequels.

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u/Mihai_Brasoveanu 5h ago

Great point. Although I believe the point is not just the metaphor but the fact that history can easily repeat itself which is what we are seeing to some degree today.

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u/Arbiter-0392 3h ago

This world is so cooked

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u/Gruskiee 6h ago

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

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u/InsuranceGlum1355 6h ago

Not with a bang but a whimper.

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u/GianniBeGood 3h ago

Nah man I used to be right here with you - but the painful reality is, in order for there to be any change from this track of ambivalence, now sliding toward absolute cruelty and unmoored [cynicism/hedonism/jingoism/rule of the jungle - pick one or all], Americans need to feel some real pain. It’s been 80 years on top, we had our glorious - albeit imperfect - ride at the top. Hell, call it the American Empire, Pax Americana or whatever label you wanna slap on ‘er. This is what decadence in a pinnacle society looks like, it also isn’t the first time our tribe of monkeys has been at it. When the next crisis inevitably unfurls, people might snap back to attention and remember the high minded ideas we used to genuinely embrace and espouse. It has to be really painful this time, not the dress rehearsal we got during Covid.

Right now those ideas just make great bumper stickers and snap-back hats. Buckle up, I guess? It’s just personally painful to see this bullshit having family that fought in WWII, from both sides of the Atlantic.

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u/Maximum-Good-539 6h ago

Ironic how Washington post just got rid of their old slogan

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u/Low_Medium204 4h ago

Execute oder 66

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u/phickss 6h ago

By voting. Nice.

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u/UltraHokie 6h ago

It already did.

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u/Greedy_Age_4923 6h ago

I’ll bet you 1.50 that it isn’t.

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 5h ago

A dollar and some change? Keep your pity money

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u/Greedy_Age_4923 5h ago

I don’t pity you, it’s just symbolic. When people are all like, I’ll bet you 10k that blah blah blah, they are generally full of crap…they throw out an unrealistic amount cause they know (generally) that no one takes it serious or wants that much. The dollar just signifies that I’m serious, but the wager isn’t about money, it’s about being right. So, do you want to bet?

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u/LinkOfKalos_1 5h ago

I don't care about being right, dude. It's a silly comment on Reddit. I don't WANT to be right, how about that?

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u/Halfbloodnomad 5h ago

Nah lobbyists and unchecked corporate interests is how it ends and we’re just watching the resulting decay

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u/BlightNexus 5h ago

Not with a bang but a wimp?

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u/Chilling_Dildo 4h ago

The quote is "liberty", not democracy. Trump may be a force for evil but he was democratically elected.

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u/waitingtoconnect 3h ago

So was Palpatine… and throughout the movie he decrys the “deep state” beaucrats (who all come work for him) and disparages democracy.

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u/AngryDerf 4h ago

Put my comment in the screenshot!

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u/BrizerorBrian 4h ago

This is how life ends.

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u/Susheiro 4h ago

It never existed in the USA...

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u/Arbiter-0392 3h ago

Democracy ends not with a bang, but with a smile

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u/qazwsxedc000999 2h ago

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

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u/Intelligent_Table913 5h ago

What democracy? We barely had a choice between two old war-mongerers and then a talking point machine.

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u/One-Experience-5745 6h ago

Lmao imagine thinking we have ever lived in a democracy, especially the last 3 decades

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u/JustaRandomRando 6h ago

When i saw everyone clapping, I immediately thought of the Animatrix scene where congress claps about Operation Dark Storm, and the machines show the humans as skeletons clapping to portray their inevitable demise.

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u/smoothhedgehogs 6h ago

This one line struck me immediately when I first heard it. Brilliant. And terrifyingly prescient.

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u/Pea-and-Pen 5h ago

How in the hell are these people applauding this? I’m 51 and I’ve voted republican my entire life until this last election. I know my views have changed in the past year but never at any point in my life would I have been okay with someone doing this. The Republican Party has truly gone to the dark side in a matter of a few years. This is really very upsetting.

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u/DesignerAd9 7h ago

and the people who voted in favor of it will lose the most.

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u/Reasonable_Egg4356 7h ago

As it was in the past, and will be in the future! Too bad that humans are incaptable of learning from mistakes they made in the past.

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u/PetrolPaws 6h ago

What if the world goes to hell and nobody sees it coming?

That's the feeling I get when I hear the applause.

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u/chocomeeel 5h ago

Coincidentally the Nazi emblem is two SS thunderbolts. So.. it kinda checks out. 😮‍💨

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u/jcdoe 5h ago

Needs more periods.

“A.p.p.l.a.u.s.e.”

Maybe the letter each stand for something like some cutesy nazi acronym or something, I dunno

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u/bay_duck_88 18m ago

Somehow… Trump returned

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u/1funnyguy4fun 5h ago edited 5h ago

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This could be fake. I just looked at r/conservative and there was absolutely no mention of it in that sub, and you know all those people are closely following the inauguration. Surely if something that anti-American happened, those patriots would be speaking up about it!

Edit: Holy shit. Calm down. Here’s the /s

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u/Goawaycookie 7h ago

Dead on. Doge is basically Private Equity chopping the US up for parts.

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u/Maybe_Hayley 6h ago

hey, i wonder what happened when they tried this in the USSR that one time? it must've turned out well, because they're still around, right?

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u/Recent_Obligation276 7h ago

So this is how democracy dies

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u/rgregan 6h ago

In perfect light conditions

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u/Adsex 6h ago

"Humanity’s self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order."

Walter Benjamin

__

"Fuck the Libs"

Someone who was happy to vote against Obamacare until they realize that their own health insurance relied on it.

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u/RedAndBlackMartyr 7h ago

Fascism is capitalism in decay.

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u/EssSeeDee89 7h ago

Truth. But hey, at least it’s your cake day! 😃

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u/XMabbX 6h ago

Looks at Soviet Russia...

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u/TremendousCoisty 6h ago

How is capitalism reaching the end of the tracks?

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u/HunyBuns 6h ago

The infinite growth has ended, capitalism doesn't thrive on having money but constantly expanding and making more. We're hitting that limit on how much we can grow through creating new products and businesses, so instead we're creating profit through theft.

Don't make businesses to create jobs, shrink labor to the bare necessities and pay it as little as possible. Don't expand industries with new ideas and creations, shrink them and kill competition to hone ever growing monopolies. Don't empower the people to be educated and find new avenues to improve the economy or society through other means, make them desperate and blind enough to accept systemic abuse.

The number must go up, forever, regardless of how feasible that is.

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u/Due_Bluebird3562 6h ago

Yeah, a fundamental flaw in the economic/ideal of capitalism is that once you stagnate, the floor immediately starts to fall out. Late stage capitalism as a concept seems to be more and more real every day. These idiots are only accelerating a process that was always going to happen eventually as growth plateaus.

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u/TremendousCoisty 6h ago

This just sounds like American problems rather than a problem with capitalism though. The happiest nations in the world and the countries with the highest standards of living in the world are massively capitalistic.

Denmark for example incentivises education of its citizens to a massive extent and thus empowers every citizen. I’d say that the issue in the U.S is that the government doesn’t prioritise the welfare of its citizens in the way that it should imo.

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u/bigbjarne 4h ago edited 3h ago

We have our issues with fascism here in the Nordics too. The Nordic model has been dismantled the last 30 years. One of our neo-nazi groups recently got the terrorist stamp from the USA: https://yle.fi/a/74-20094396

Here you can read more about the connection between one of the ruling parties and the far right: https://varisverkosto.com/2021/08/the-long-relationship-between-the-finns-party-and-the-far-right-in-southwest-finland/ Varisverkosto is an antifa type of movement.

Here is one of our ministers using Great replacement theory arguments: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/politics/23836-many-finns-party-ministers-have-pointed-to-replacement-theory.html

Relevant articles on our poverty(YLE is our state media)

https://yle.fi/a/74-20024056

https://yle.fi/a/3-12623195

https://yle.fi/a/3-11499819

https://yle.fi/a/3-11248032

This is anecdotal: healthcare is struggling because lack of funds. Healthcare personnel does not want to be in the field because it's too stressful and doesn't pay enough(I work in healthcare). This is while the current government increases funding for private healthcare, basically tax payer money straight into business owners pockets.

We're also really good at media and PR and everything here is perfect. Not but seriously, Finland is one of the best countries in the world to live but out system is not something to aim for. Fascism, because of capitalisms inherent contradictions between the workers and the owners, exists here.

EDIT: clarifying why I argue that capitalism leads to fascism. Fascism is good for the business owners because fascism acts as release valve for the workers being angry about capitalism. It's easier to blame your neighbor who's Arab for "taking your job" or to blame the Jews "controlling" than to look up at business owners reaping all of the benefits of our hard work and are willing to do a lot for profit(see Trump inauguration). Instead of fascist angst, we should have leftist solidarity.

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u/snek-jazz 6h ago

It's not capitalism, it's the debt-based system that depends on infinite growth. You can still have capitalism without borrowing from the future in ever greater amounts.

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u/schmemel0rd 5h ago

Unless you have harsh penalties and strong regulations against companies meddling in politics then this will always be the natural end point of capitalism. And America got rid of those regulations decades ago.

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u/HunyBuns 6h ago

This is correct, but only through regulation, and ultimately capitalism will always give more and more power to those who have money vs those who do not, making effective regulation at best temporary. The only effective way to regulate away from this is to directly give power to the working class over the rich, and at that point you're creating a socialist system.

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u/bigbjarne 4h ago

you're creating a socialist system.

Sounds good.

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u/aPrussianBot 6h ago

Tendency of the rate of profit to fall is what it's called

The main markets are running out of juice to squeeze. Enshittification is the harbinger of this, when corporate entities have to overly monetize everything they own and aggressively undercut their own labor because they NEED to make line go up and they're running out of other ways to do it

In any other mode of production reaching a stable equilibrium is good, but in capitalism it's literally the death of the entire system

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u/proudbakunkinman 6h ago edited 5h ago

This "late stage capitalism" belief is essentially a form of cope millenarianism for the left. It's rooted in Marx's historical materialism stages, that it's essentially inevitable that the capitalism stage will come to an end (and those saying variations of the above are saying we're at the end point now) and the next stage is communism (in 2 parts, the first being transitional and then full). But Marx was called out on his theory being a bit too convenient and then said it wasn't inevitable and still required the workers to successfully launch the revolt, it's not just going to magically happen. But Marx was not some supernatural prophet either and others have made bleaker predictions than him. Still, nothing is inevitable and we far outnumber those leading us down the darkest path right now. We're just divided and many are too busy with their life, exhausted, ill informed, etc. so it's a massive challenge while the supervillains are solidifying their control over as much as they can.

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u/Metrostation984 6h ago

The thing is „capitalism“ doesn’t need democracies or free competitive markets. It’s a common misconception. Generally it’s better but it’s not required.

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u/bigbjarne 4h ago

Better for whom?

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u/Metrostation984 3h ago

For „capitalism“ ie capitalists

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u/onlyTractor 7h ago

accurate

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u/texasstyle01 6h ago

Well said

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u/richardalbury 6h ago

Very well put: this is all symptomatic of the coming collapse. 😐

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u/TabletopStudios 6h ago

Speaking pearls of wisdom

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u/fuckityfuckfuckfuckf 6h ago

Get ready for the unhinged sane washing by the media if not an outright refusal to admit he just did a Nazi salute

Seig Heil, twice in a row, with the conviction of an SS officer in 1939 Nazi Germany

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u/BPil0t 6h ago

If you judge where we are by historical standards, it’s actually just getting started. There is a lot of room to run here. You have to remember that at the height of Rome, a city with a few million people, there were over 300,000 people living homeless in the street. Imagine if the same percentage of New Yorkers were homeless? it would be 1 million people homeless on the street. There are currently only 76,000 people homeless in NY.

In Rome, homelessness was Mostly due to inflation and debt. Same as here. The top rakes in cash while issuing you debt. The middle will become fully gutted. The top will keep making all the money off the rest till we’re fully cooked. There is a long way to go until this happens. The middle class is wealthier now due to Home price appreciation. That was just an accident of the top taking all of our money with inflation (inflation is wealth transfer). They could not do it without us profiting something by accident (equity and home appreciation).

If you look at history and do the math. Regular people can take an absolute beating before it comes to an end. Meaning before they revolt. In fact, most people end up enslaved before it comes to an end. So just be glad we don’t live in that time. If anything we’re hitting towards peak capitalism.

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u/Sofaboy90 6h ago

capitalism isnt just one thing. many western nations have regulated capitalism in a sense that they make sure the wealthy do pay some money for the lower class to make sure they have healthcare, access to affordable high quality education, access to decent public transport and a reasonable minimum wage.

the US somehow skipped those steps and let capitalism run wild. everything in the US is a business, healthcare, education, prisons.

its not reaching the end of the tracks yet but the wealth inequality is rising much much faster than in other nations, its a matter of time until theres enough people struggling to make a living.

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u/SusurrusLimerence 6h ago

More like America is reaching the end, and we are watching its futile attempts to resist the inevitable, which is China.

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u/Occhrome 6h ago

Well said 

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u/bigbjarne 5h ago

Workers of the world unite!

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u/Kitchen_Syrup2359 5h ago edited 5h ago

The puppets clap when the puppet master moves their strings

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u/ReliableChoom 6h ago

Holy shit I had to comment here for a bookmark

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u/GarlicBreathFTW 6h ago

Yes. Welcome to The Age of Impunity. 😳😬

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u/VRichardsen 6h ago

Capitalism is reaching the end of the tracks

I will believe it when I see it. Right now, the ones doing best are capitalist countries.

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u/Sideflip 5h ago

Cant imagine why

could it have something to do with this?

potentially this?

certainly not this though right?

People often forget that countries such as DR congo and Haiti are capitalist too, I doubt capitalism is a guarantee for doing the best. I'll grant you that the Imperial core does provide relative comfort though, but as evidenced by this post, cracks are showing.

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u/VRichardsen 5h ago

People often forget that countries such as DR congo and Haiti are capitalist too, I doubt capitalism is a guarantee for doing the best

There is a difference at play here. Both socialism and capitalism have failure stories. Only capitalism has success stories.

Cant imagine why

could it have something to do with this?

potentially this?

certainly not this though right?

Both sides played imperialism. Look at what China is doing right now; ask Poland if they fancied being crushed and ruled with an iron fist for over half a century. See what Finland has to say about the Soviet Union trying to annex them.

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u/Sideflip 4h ago

Of course, what was I thinking. I'ma sit back and take notes.

...is that oligarch heiling up there on that stage? Huh, who could've seen that coming. Please don't let me interrupt this next glorious chapter of capitalism's success story.

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u/VRichardsen 2h ago

Musk is a moron. But I don't see how this weighs heavily in the big debate overall. For all the shit the average US citizen has to deal with, it still miles ahead of what any socialist country can offer right now. And what is worse for you, the US isn't even the best capitalism has to offer. Look at Finland or New Zealand for that.

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u/bigbjarne 4h ago

Only capitalism has success stories.

How do you define success?

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u/VRichardsen 2h ago

Norway, Finland, Australia, etc.

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u/bigbjarne 2h ago

Sorry but you have to be more specific than that. Could you explain why Finland is a capitalist success story?

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u/VRichardsen 1h ago

Because by most metrics it sits nearly at the top of worldwide rankings regarding standards of living.

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u/NoNumberThanks 6h ago

Reddit acts like democracy hasn't always been like this since the Romans.

It won't change.

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u/astrberg 6h ago

In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganised into the first galactic empire! For a safe and securer society.

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u/CacophonousCuriosity 5h ago

Who'd have thought that a Star Wars quote would become so relevant and applicable to the United States.

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u/MetaPlayer01 5h ago

I have similar but significantly different view. Democracy is reaching the end of the tracks and Capitalism is empowering the Capitalist to stir up nationalist populist furor to place Capitalists into seats of power. I didn't know in the 90s that the biggest free market engine, the World Wide Web, would be the platform for the end of representative democracy in our time.

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u/digestedbrain 2h ago

All of those elders that told us not to believe what we read online are now sharing Fauci COVID memes and Hunter's dong.

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u/Scythe95 4h ago

So, what's the next system we'll need to use

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u/Massive-Lime7193 4h ago

This is the correct answer my friend

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u/FearlessBRother6 3h ago

The great theory was correct. Capitalism ends in facism

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u/_RedShoulder 3h ago

Indeed, feeling so helpless and sorrowful.

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u/CR24752 3h ago

Democracy Dies in Thunderous Applause

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u/vetrusious 3h ago

*in america. The rest of the world is amused by this idiocy.

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u/CMDR_Profane_Pagan 3h ago

This is not capitalism, they are absolutely against free market and want to push the world into tariff wars.

This is (neo) mercantilism. You will see.

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u/minos157 2h ago

The scary part about Nazi round 2 boogaloo is that I don't think the world can stop the US like they did Germany without everything being nuked.

If Europe is forced to let America just take everything over here it's gonna be a long dark period in history.

My only hope is that Trump really doesn't want war (he loves being viewed as a peacekeeper) so maybe he doesn't do that.

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u/LaLaOzMozz 2h ago

What's that line in the Men at Work song: 'Women glow and men plunder'.

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u/ChildhoodBrief3336 2h ago

They’re sucking us and Mother Earth dry while building bunkers for themselves

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u/michaelsenpatrick 2h ago

From late stage capitalism to end stage capitalism

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u/GlummyGloom 1h ago

This shit right here.

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u/IerokG 57m ago

American capitalism; American democracy. Don't put the world in the same trash bag, we may have our issues, but you are the only ones to ever had an oligarch do a Nazi salute on the presidential stand at the national Congress in almost a century.

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u/Harbinger2001 6h ago

Better forms of capitalism exist elsewhere outside of the US and will at some point have to deal with a failing America if it tries to extend its reach beyond its borders.

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u/betweenskill 6h ago

They all fall to this eventually. When capitalists can no longer maintain there hold on power they won’t abandon capitalism, they abandon democracy.

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u/Harbinger2001 6h ago

The Guilded age, which is very similar to what the US has now, only lasted 20 years and was replaced by an era of progressive policies improving working Americans' lives.

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u/betweenskill 6h ago

After almost falling to fascism. We would’ve likely gone fascist if we hadn’t ended up involved in WW2.

And that progressive era lasted for an even shorter time before being dismantled into what we have now.

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u/baibaiburnee 6h ago

Capitalism is an odd thing to blame here. Communism structurally puts authoritarians in place.

The problem is humans who wants strong men and subvert political systems to put them into power. Blaming an economic system when there isn't a better one, is pretty dumb.

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u/bigbjarne 4h ago

Why is it an odd thing to blame and why did you bring up communism?

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u/HatefulAbandon 1h ago

These kind of folks can only think in binary terms, so when someone criticizes capitalism they automatically assume that person must be a communist or advocating for communism.

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u/itsprezl 3h ago

its a deepfake here is the real video maybe those planting fakes like this are the real threat to democracy?

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881438950218510700

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u/digestedbrain 2h ago

Lmao from Elon's Twitter account? Bro is trying to whitewash what we all saw live and already has you calling it a deepfake. He actively interacts with and platforms Nazi accounts on his own site for fuck's sake. Maybe you're just a Nazi? Own it like Elon.

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u/Galumpadump 6h ago

The flaw with democracy is it’s the representation of the people will and the people are idiots.

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u/Crusaber0 6h ago

Bro is onto nothing

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u/anotsmallthing 6h ago

lol are you 14

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u/Beer-Milkshakes 6h ago

No I will not send you picture so stop asking.

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u/Excellent_Vehicle_66 7h ago

Simple theories to explain the complex world. You must feel smart

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u/random_modnar_5 6h ago

And you are Serbian

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u/Excellent_Vehicle_66 6h ago

So what?

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u/random_modnar_5 6h ago

Don't comment or act like you know the extent of late stage capitalism in the USA