I couldn’t agree more, especially since, for anyone not from the US, even the most moderate White House posts are so utterly absurd that these days it’s really hard to tell the difference between satire and real-life clown show.
I can assure you that everyone is trying their best to adjust somehow, but it’s really hard given this level of absurdity.
Agreed. Agent Orange, lackey to the billionaires, or just plain pedo would probably be much more fitting - but “President” seems completely inappropriate, because even in a pseudo-democratic country, that would imply he acts in the people’s interest, which is definitely not the case.
Yes, that’s true, but I’m sure the method would work just as well if you asked the orange guy where the best location for a wind farm is.
It’s all just a joke, of course: No one should pay even the slightest bit of attention to what this criminal has to say.
That’s actually a solid rule of thumb when you’re not sure: if the plan aims to do the exact opposite of what the orange mob boss says, it can’t be anything but a good plan.
It’s kind of interesting that most people here seem to assume that attending college is synonymous with education or knowledge. It would be nice if that were the case.
However, there are also quite a few people who went to college but didn’t learn a thing there - especially in countries like the U.S. or England, where a college degree costs an absurd amount of money, this happens all the time. It’s especially common there to find children of wealthy people who are as dumb as a box of rocks, yet still manage to buy their way into high society with a college degree - they’re guaranteed to get it, regardless of whether they learn even the slightest thing at university.
The current U.S. president is a good example…
I recently attended the wedding of a friend who married into nobility. Most of the bride’s friends, who had all attended Eton or Cheltenham, worked in some capacity as estate or property managers.
Edit: The whole event had a pretty satirical feel to it - there was even the mentally unstable, rich daughter who, later in the evening, threw herself at you while drunk and went on and on about how awful her mother was, how boring her friends were, and all that. Oh, and there were quite a few rich old perverts as well who were constantly making lewd advances toward the much younger women in attendance. All in all, it was quite a strange wedding.
I just can’t understand how anyone could possibly vote for the CDU—given its racism and anti-social policies—but I also can’t understand those who consider it competent. This party somehow has a reputation for being competent in economic matters, yet its shameless schemes are largely to blame for Germany’s current dire economic situation.
Until 2003, the country was a global leader in photovoltaics, but the CDU cut funding to benefit its fossil fuel cronies, causing this now multi-billion-dollar industry to go to the dogs.
The internet infrastructure is abysmal because the Kohl administration chose to lay copper instead of fiber-optic cables to accommodate their cronies in the cable TV industry at the time. The problem persists to this day and has cost the country billions.
The CDU decided to phase out nuclear power without an alternative, presumably yet another favor for the fossil fuel cronies. Electricity in Germany is now more expensive than in almost any other industrialized country.
The CDU is on the verge of blocking progress in electric mobility as a favor to the auto lobby. Clinging to a technology that is simply outdated will cost the country billions in the medium term, just so that car manufacturers—who are themselves to blame for having completely ignored the signs of the times—can continue to generate high sales until, at some point, they can no longer sell anything because nobody wants their products anymore
The CDU is one of the key forces responsible for the one-sided orientation toward the US, which makes Germany vulnerable to blackmail and causes enormous harm to innovation within the country.
These are just a few examples—this party lacks economic competence on a unfathomable level: They are just lining their own pockets and so they have been making decisions for decades that have caused extreme economic harm to the country and continue to do so.
I think this issue is exactly the same as many others that are, in principle, supported by an overwhelming majority: it is the influence of lobbying that makes it possible for the will of the people to be ignored. While this phrase is widely used, it doesn’t quite capture the essence of the matter - it is simply corruption.
Yeah, that’s true: Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob, and his team certainly had some socially critical intent when they created the show and its characters - after all, there are often deliberately exaggerated everyday situations and the like which address social issues in a humorous way.
But also yeah, exactly: I added /s because, while the underlying message is at least somewhat recognizable, I presented it in such a pretentious way. I was just lazing around in bed and thought I’d have a little fun with some kind of pseudo-intellectual silliness.
So /s - mainly so no one here thinks I’m some completely out-of-touch political theorist or something who actually takes this exaggerated view all too seriously :)
Mr. Krabs’s relentless emphasis on profit -expressed through wage suppression, obsessive cost-cutting, and the conversion of social relations into transactions - renders him a concentrated embodiment of profit-driven logic. SpongeBob’s boundless cheerfulness and dutiful labor on the other hand present the idealized worker who performs emotional compliance as part of his job; his behavior makes visible the moral contradiction at the heart of an economy that prizes surplus extraction over workers’ wellbeing. The Krusty Krab’s daily rhythms - timed shifts, commodified leisure, scripted upselling, and constant attention to margins - show how extraction becomes normalized through routine rather than force.
The rivalry between Mr. Krabs and Sheldon J. Plankton further highlights the system’s subtly coercive nature: their ceaseless competition is less about innovation than about maintaining status atop the same extractive order, a ruthless free market theater in which two capitalists conserve and contest power while workers absorb the costs. The comedy works because it literalizes these dynamics - affection as account entry, friendship as transaction - so that the satirical clarity of the show forces viewers, even while amused, to recognize how profit as an organizing principle reshapes everyday life and renders cheerfulness itself a technique of compliance.
/s
It would be great if that were the case, but unfortunately, I’m afraid it won’t last long. Gun lobbyists are already scrambling to strike deals that will sooner or later sway corrupt politicians. The fact that Western countries have still not imposed any sanctions - neither against the U.S. for its blatant violation of international law, nor against Israel for the same offense and, additionally, genocide - shows that this is a thoroughly realistic assessment.
Thanks, that’s a shame to hear. I’d read about his case some time ago, but now that he’s so openly siding with those responsible for precisely this kind of ridiculous abuse of the legal system, I’ve immediately lost interest - it’s inexcusable to me, because I firmly reject everything this criminal regime stands for. Besides, as I said: calling Afroman a musician would really be an exaggeration - no matter what standard you apply.
Afroman
Edit: the one on the left is a rapist and war criminal
Has he always been such a spineless traitor, or is he just sucking up to the orange pedo so he can get off the hook?
I know absolutely nothing about this clown - except for the fact that he has remarkably little talent.
Well, he’ll soon realize that the clan is even less interested in his shitty music than everyone else. What a moron…
Indeed, I do believe, however, that neo-Nazi parties like the AfD are by no means successful on their own merits.
As in the U.S., I think, this is only possible thanks to the active support of the very same billionaires who, in the U.S., ensured that a pedophile serial criminal could become president. In my view, this is only made possible by an artificial illusion of public opinion, which is now predominantly propagated through mainstream social media platforms.
If one considers public opinion according to the definition by the renowned political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, I think it becomes clear what I mean:
“Public opinion is the sum of those opinions on a given issue that individuals express publicly because they believe they are socially acceptable and will not lead to isolation.”
Elisabeth Noelle-Neuman, The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion - Our Social Skin
Mainstream Social Media platforms are, after all, controlled unilaterally by billionaires who use them to advance their interests - something Musk for example makes particularly obvious. In doing so, they control public discourse and make Nazi ideology appear socially acceptable again by artificially amplifying it to make it seem like a majority opinion.
Unfortunately, this has by now eliminated the effect of social isolation, which explains why, even in Germany and despite its terrible history, Nazi ideology appears to be a socially acceptable viewpoint - which, in turn, has a very significant effect on political discourse.
And I wouldn’t exactly call it subtle - quite the opposite, in fact: in Germany, for example, politicians step in front of the camera and openly spout Nazi slogans. Just 10 years ago, they would have had to resign for that, and rightly so.
It is not the people who make the laws, but their representatives, who, all too often, unfortunately do not make decisions in the people’s best interest. Nevertheless, it is indeed the people themselves who decide whether to use Twitter, speak to a voice assistant, or reveal their personal secrets in an AI chat.
Of course, it’s true that it may be appropriate to protect people from themselves, but I still think it’s also entirely appropriate to hold them accountable for their decisions and the consequences. For example, there are countless alternatives to Amazon, but people still order from there because it’s just so convenient.
In addition, people could also put pressure on their representatives if they allow themselves to be bought off by lobbyists yet again. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t happen very often.
What I’m getting at is this: None of what we’re experiencing today would be possible if people didn’t make it possible by buying products from companies that everyone knows are harmful to society.
I really wonder how we ended up here.
Why do people use mainstream social media? Why do they buy those stupid glasses? Why do they willingly feed corporations their most personal data?
Unfortunately, one has to conclude that it is, to a very large extent, people’s blatant stupidity that has led us to a point where there is now something like a new monarchy of unscrupulous billionaires - if not their stupidity, then at least their indifference, their apathy, and laziness. It’s just awful…
Try explaining that to the people in Iran who rose up against the regime, were shot by the hundreds, and are now being bombed by the U.S.
Another perspective of presumably the same event by Josh Kirby…