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Yeah, the whole platform is about Othering. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the middle class that the poor are the cause of all their pro

Yeah, the whole platform is about Othering. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the middle class that the poor are the cause of all their problems.

falcor84 1y ago
I'm confused. I don't recall anyone ever saying that we need to get rid of the poor, but rather that we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor. Did I miss my scheduled indoctrination message?
- dfxm12 1y ago
  I don't recall anyone ever saying... Don't focus on words. Focus on actions. For example, the action of deploying the military on Americans does not make conditions better for us. Quite the contrary. The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. That money could be going to education, school lunches, Medicaid, building bridges, etc. But it isn't. it is only going to stroke the president's ego. Most of his actions, EO's, deals, bills, etc., fall into this category.
  - dotancohen 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - ty6853 1y ago
      I don't know it re-establishes order but rather teaches the populace to up the ante. While I don't condone repeating history, it is instructive to look at history. When this military-type response was done at Waco, Timothy McViegh looked at that (he was there) and took out 10x as many feds as they took out citizens. And it sparked a very long period of militia movements, etc.
      - dotancohen 1y ago
        Are Feds not citizens in the US? You guys have a stark division between the government employees and the not-government-employees. Isn't the US government "for the people, by the people"? Serious question. I'm not disputing what you said, rather I'm trying to understand it.
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        ty6853 1y ago
        No feds aren't citizens in the US in any conventional sense. They have qualified immunity and a special kind of sovereign immunity that even state and local police do not have. They can initiate violence whereas citizens cannot. They can shoot a fleeing person as a citizen cannot. They can lie to you freely but if you lie to them (their interpretation of a lie), a felony. They generally can't be held accountable unless they are dumb enough to say the quiet parts out loud, and even then usually not. They are also effectively impossible to sue, so you'll probably never see any justice in the courts if they act unlawfully. Even if manage to get the lawsuit going they will play fuck-fuck games with jurisdiction until you lose (as I found out when trying to sue feds for stripping me naked, cavity searching me, and executing a fraudulent warrant on a fabricated dog alert -- no one would take my case because they had lost similar cases every time).
    - sleepybrett 1y ago
      They weren't rioting until the crackdown on the peaceful protest started.
    - jvanderbot 1y ago
      Yes, if we focus on actions, the action of causing public disorder is a glaring example of things we do not want in civil society. We also do not want tanks in our streets. Both seem like bad things, honestly, so I'm wondering how we got here.
      - dotancohen 1y ago
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        trust_bt_verify 1y ago
        Reposting this everywhere doesn’t make it truthful.
        deleted 1y ago
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        dotancohen 1y ago
        Where have I reposted this? As for not being true, are the newspapers lying? Are those photographs fakes?
        throwaway894345 1y ago
        > Clearly if these people torching the cars are waving foreign flags, they are a foreign enemy and thus the military is appropriate, no? No. Torching cars is already a crime and the city and state were already restoring order. The kind of flag waved while a car is torched does not change the calculus. Critically, a US citizen does not cease to be a US citizen because they waved a foreign flag; we have free speech in the United States, and flag-waving is protected by the first amendment. Also worth noting that none of this would have happened if the regime didn't deliberately provoke it in the first place.
        alxfoster 1y ago
        Honest question: how does this calculus change when the person waiving a foreign flag on a burned out vehicle is actually not a citizen and armed with a weapon.
    - ChicagoDave 1y ago
      This is the lie. At every step, immigration agents and police have instigated the violence. There are no riots. People are protesting and blocking access to vulnerable people. LA is not on fire. These incidents are in very small geographic areas even though media would suggest it’s widespread. People are pushing back when rubber bullets and tear gas are being used, illegally. U.S. citizens have a right to protest. This is baked into our constitution.
    - code_for_monkey 1y ago
      You give away the game right here. You don't consider 'rioters' americans, you're already othering them right in the question. Fascism 101!
      - freedomben 1y ago
        GP said they don't live in the US, it's possible English isn't even their first language. If they are a non-native speaker and just made a translation/wording mistake, you might feel like a pretty big asshole twisting that to call them a fascist (which word btw, is pretty overloaded and has become essentially meaningless to a large number of people). It's also quite possible they mean "Americans" in a general sense in that the Marines are not being turned loose on the American public. They are being focused on the rioters specifically. Obligatory self-declaration since you and many others will probably jump to conclusions about my opinion (as for whatever reason, we seem incapable of nuance even to the point of understanding that not everything in life is completely black or white), even though I've said nothing of it until now: I think Trump's actions are grotesque, authoritarian, and fascist, and it really pisses me off.
        dttze 1y ago
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      - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
        > You give away the game right here. You don't consider 'rioters' americans, you're already othering them right in the question. Fascism 101! If they are non-citizens, they are not american. Pretty cut and dry distinction. Nothing fascist about this.
        simtel20 1y ago
        I have neither seen nor heard anything that would lead me to believe most of the protesters are non-citizens or non-resident. You are not providing any evidence, just conveniently excusing this overreach by the executive branch by ignoring the rights of the protesters with a facile lie.
    - johnQdeveloper 1y ago
      > I can understand having the military in the streets, when the news is full of people waving foreign flags while torching vehicles in the streets. Yes but the news (in the US) is a fully for profit organizations most of which are owned by the right-wing folks. (i.e. Much of the newspapers, CNN, Fox News are run by boards that are right-leaning) They are intentionally pushing a narrative that the family I have in the area believes is simply a very small number of incidents that are nowhere near as bad as what is presented. > This does not look like the military being deployed on Americans, rather it looks like the military being deployed on rioters. Whether those rioters are Americans or illegal immigrants really doesn't matter for the purposes of reestablishing order. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/posse-comitatus-act-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/poss... I suggest you stop looking at this through the lens of an Israeli and do some research on the US system of laws :) Deploying the military "on rioters" and whether they are "Americans or illegals" is actually quite important. Using the military as a police force is illegal and the only real open legal question is if using it against "invaders" who are not here legally is technically allowed. You are acting like these people are Hamas, when in reality, they are nowhere close to even 5% as dangerous.
      - susiecambria 1y ago
        And the media and federal government citing the waving of foreign flags is another distraction. As Americans, and people living in the USA, we are allowed to do this. It's a Constitutional protection. Again, all of this is a distraction from what the prez is doing.
        johnQdeveloper 1y ago
        Correct. But for some reason "flags" and "not white/christian/jewish" somehow makes them the OTHER TRIBE and therefore the laws don't matter to conservatives. I don't feel particularly safe in the US with the government making lists of people like me based on the medication we are taking. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-05-02/is-rfk-jr-creating-an-autism-registry-what-to-know https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-05-02/... Its not new, but the centralization of these datasets isn't making me feel like anything other than a target.
    - throwaway894345 1y ago
      For the most part, the protestors are peaceful, not rioters, and there are plenty of scenes of police and national guard being marshaled against them. In one clip, a couple dozen police officers opened fire on a kid with a skateboard. In another, they open fire on a journalist giving a live report. In another, they're beating back protestors holding signs. And "reestablishing order" is an obvious farce, because the Trump administration was deliberately provoking this conflict by sending in masked agents to abduct people and at least in one instance, running over a protestor. The administration has been consistently escalating the conflict, which is not something you do to "reestablish order", but it is absolutely a tactic of 20th century authoritarians to acquire emergency powers which they then use to prevent elections, jail political opponents, etc.
    - HillRat 1y ago
      It looks like the military being deployed on rioters Leaving aside the equivalence of "protesting" with "rioting," the United States has robust Constitutional, common-law and statutory guardrails against the use of the military domestically. The US military cannot, absent an insurrection in which regular legal order cannot be maintained, be deployed against US residents. The use of the military in the past has been limited to what were deemed by federal and state officials full insurrections (e.g., the Whiskey Rebellion), or, in the civil rights era, in response to governors affirmatively refusing to enforce the law regarding an end to segregation and the integration of public institutions. In this case we have state and local officials explicitly stating that the factual predicates of an insurrection aren't being satisfied (the protests cover a few square blocks in a metropolitan area that by itself is larger than Lebanon or Kosovo, in a state larger than Japan or Sweden). While courts traditionally give deference to executive determinations of this sort, they aren't beyond judicial review, and this is (I would argue) clearly pretextual. What we're seeing here, conversely, is an attempt to sidestep this clear principle through not-particularly-clever tricks and semantic gamesmanship; for example, mobilizing Marines to "protect federal property," but then DHS officially asking DOD to give active duty forces arrest power. This is clearly unconstitutional and illegal, but, as with much we've seen recently, the hope appears to be that if you change the facts on the ground quickly enough, the clear illegality of the actions can be ignored. In addition, the federalization of a state National Guard against the will of the state is unprecedented; I don't know of any previous example of this happening. In the American system, even though the National Guard is a vestige of the old state militias, it's clear that the states are at least assumed to have plenary authority over their own forces absent an invasion or insurrection.
      - dotancohen 1y ago
        > Leaving aside the equivalence of "protesting" with "rioting," Is not burning cars crossing the line from protesting to rioting?
        mensetmanusman 1y ago
        Yes. Some protests are riots, all riots are protests.
    - atakan_gurkan 1y ago
      It is the other way around. The military is being deployed on Americans. Whether they are rioters or not doesn't matter for establishing an authoritarian state.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      Since you're not American, a brief overview of our military: 1. We have 5 or 6 branches of military. The important one here is the national guard, ones meant to aid Americans in emergency or crisis. 2. The other branches have huge limits on when the federal government can deploy them domestically The Posse Comitatus Act that came as a result of the US civil war covers this.so having marines being deployed is a huge overreach. 3. The vast majority of the time, the national guard is managed by the state Governor, and Gavin Newsom has explicitly opposed this decision. The federal government taking command of the national guard is an exploit of The Insurrection Act that's been going on for a while. All thst context being given: Newsom is right. This isn't trying to establish order, this is a meticulous escalation on a conservative president in a liberal city to make a show of force. For reference, there's reportedly some 600 rioters and they sent out 2000 (now 4000) national guard and 709 marines. This is all without including the LAPD which is comprised of over 8000 officers. The amount of money and resources spent on this is utter overkill. And part of the point. They want an excuse to call martial law so badly.
    - mensetmanusman 1y ago
      Military is being deployed to protect federal buildings like what was done during the king riots.
      - bobmcnamara 1y ago
        The marines deployed in 92 marched with the national guard and LAPD. The marines shot up houses in Compton.
        mensetmanusman 1y ago
        Yes, that’s the famous case where the marines were shot at multiple times with shotguns and returned fire.
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  - ElectronCharge 1y ago
    > The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. The funds for the "United States Army 250th Anniversary Parade" were allocated before President Trump was elected, during the Biden debacle. The fact that it falls on June 14th is what is called a "coincidence". Be careful about blindly accepting propaganda as fact.
    - throwaway894345 1y ago
      I would agree with your "coincidence" explanation if it weren't for the consistent pattern of "coincidences" in which Trump does something dictator-like and right-wingers rush to his defense with "coincidence". It's just a coincidence that all of these foreign diplomats invest in his meme coin or some family business and then suddenly are granted meetings with the president! It's just a coincidence that Qatar sends him a luxury airliner and his rhetoric about Qatar does a 180 degree flip! It's just a coincidence that he tried to interfere in a presidential election! It's just a coincidence that he consistently claims Article I and Article III powers for himself! It's just a coincidence that he's rounding up people and sending them to foreign prisons! I've never met someone so unlucky /s
      - ElectronCharge 1y ago
        Are you claiming that the Army anniversary date being on DJT's birthday ISN'T a coincidence? That must take some crazy mental gymnastics... As to your other points, most aren't coincidences, though some aren't real either.
        weberc2 1y ago
        > Are you claiming that the Army anniversary date being on DJT's birthday ISN'T a coincidence? That must take some crazy mental gymnastics... You should read the post you're responding to. It clearly addresses this very question. > though some aren't real either I think you mean, "though I'm not familiar with some of those cases"--otherwise a citation is needed.
        1y ago
  - deleted 1y ago
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- fooqux 1y ago
  Maybe not "get rid of" but plenty of other fingers are pointed at them. They get "free housing" (which they fill with drugs and kids), they get "free food" (which they use instead to buy alcohol), they get "free cellphones" (which they use to run drug rings), etc. It's usually about how the poor get Foo for free, which everyone else has to pay for, and also about how they misuse Foo for nefarious reasons. The commons then get riled up, either because "Hey, why do they get free housing when I have to spend tons of money?" or because of all the nefarious things they supposedly do.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    When you say "they" are you talking about the local US citizens doing these things, because "they" are doing it too. Comments like yours that word it so that it sounds like all crimes are being committed non-citizens which is such a fallacy it's laughable.
    - fooqux 1y ago
      I used the word "they" on purpose, because the target seems to change often. It might be lower class, it might be immigrants (illegal and even legal), it might be $racial_minority, political faction, etc,. As long as it's a group that people can blame, it works.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    If people say the "free Foo" being offered, I wage many would choose to keep buying better quality Foo. These people are not offered luxury. It can barely be considered essentials. Also: Food stamps can't buy alcohol (let alone drugs).
    - t-3 1y ago
      I agree with your point, but food stamps can be used to buy drugs and alcohol... Buyer generally pays ~50% cash value. Very common for addicts to hand the EBT card over to dealer on the 3rd, but the vast majority receiving assistance use it honestly.
- righthand 1y ago
  Go ask the same people railing about immigrants, what their thoughts on homeless people might be.
- vel0city 1y ago
  > we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor Explain how work requirements to qualify for Medicaid makes conditions better to ensure there are fewer poor people. Doesn't this just harm people who can't work due to disability, and practically ensure they will never get better enough to work and contribute to society? Sure saves a lot of money for wealthy people though.
  - ETH_start 1y ago
    The work requirements only apply to the able-bodied. Coddling people like this isn't doing them any favors.
    - 542354234235 1y ago
      But isn’t Medicaid just healthcare. Being able to go to a doctor when you are sick or injured doesn’t really sound like coddling someone, “able-bodied” or not. Maybe I am misunderstanding and Medicaid is actually some new fancy handbag.
      - msgodel 1y ago
        If finding work is this hard maybe we should be slowing down immigration.
        vel0city 1y ago
        Most here aren't arguing it's exceptionally difficult to find some kind of a job or education opportunity to meet the requirements. We're mostly arguing about adding all the additional bureaucracy to add additional requirements that will need to be documented and validated. And arguing that many who should be eligible for exceptions will end up not eligible because of some paperwork or bureaucratic oversight. There is about the same amount of money allotted to help states stand up new programs to validate these requirements as the federal cost of Trump's birthday party.
        1y ago
- sigwinch 1y ago
  I look for the message of helping the poor, but it’s frustrating that politicians can evade it and their self-attained devotion to Christianity go unchallenged. The phrases to look for are “infested” and “purge”. Some politicians consider low-income to be a character of a person or a group (all the way up to a nation). Those same politicians laud language from Hitler about infestations and metaphors of racial purity.
  - ETH_start 1y ago
    Jesus didn't believe in IRS prisons. Don't look to politicians to impose Christian beliefs on people.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      You should try telling that to Ohio as of late.
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      Huh? "Render unto Caesar" and all that. IRS falls under Caesar, caring for the health of others falls under God I.E. a requirement to be a Christian.
      - goatlover 1y ago
        Did the historical Jesus really say that? He wasn't one of the religious authorities who had a deal with Rome. Many Jews didn't like Roman occupation as seen by the revolts. If Jesus had issues with the Jewish authorities, he probably did with the Roman ones as well. Apocalyptic Jews would have believed God was coming soon to overthrow the kingdoms of the world, which were controlled by evil spirts.
      - ETH_start 1y ago
        That was an answer to a trick question. The inquisitor was trying to get him to admit to defying Roman rules so he could get him imprisoned. And he gave an answer that the coins that have Roman emperor faces on them belong to the emperor, implying people could stop using those coins. Even the most generous pro-government take on that passage would have him believing that the state should be separate from the church, so church doctrine should not be imposed through state decree.
- ty6853 1y ago
  "we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor" and similar arguments is how the government scams you and everyone else into their racket. You always had the option to give to the poor, you didn't need a mob going in your pockets to do that. "But muh roads and hospitals and police." Lol, that is covered by the ~0.5% of my salary I pay in property taxes and a little extra in use taxes and county and state sales tax. The federal portion, what do I get? Massive subsidies for people who stick their boot down my throat, military provocations that make us all far less safer, the worlds largest prison population (and near the top per capita). None of it makes sense -- the stuff that matters was achieved with the feds spending 2% of the gdp (and I might add, pretty much open immigration). "Helping the poor" is one of the worst mistakes the USA ever undertook.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    > You always had the option to give to the poor History shows we've historically been pretty shitty at doing that at an individual level. > The federal portion, what do I get? Ignoring FICA, a large chunk is debt servicing, public health, earned income tax credits, food assistance, SSI, science programs, global trade security, and more. Most isn't "people who stick their boot down [your] throat", unless you're someone looking to abuse workers or food production or happens to be outside in LA these days.
  - deleted 1y ago
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- zzzeek 1y ago
  not "the poor". immigrants here's the correct indoctrination message https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-migrants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-int... > Former President Donald J. Trump, in an interview broadcast Sunday, doubled down on his description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that echoes Hitler. > “Why do you use words like ‘vermin’ and ‘poisoning of the blood’?” Howard Kurtz, the media critic and interviewer, asked on Fox News. “The press, as you know, immediately reacts to that by saying, ‘Well, that’s the kind of language that Hitler and Mussolini used.’” > “Because our country is being poisoned,” Mr. Trump responded.
- deeg 1y ago
  "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats." That was the president lying on a nationally televised debate, the purpose of which was to lay the groundwork for exporting poor people who were here legally.
  - ETH_start 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - aredox 1y ago
      No local reported that. It was all a lie. Should Trump also relay blood libels against Jews?
    - thrance 1y ago
      Even if Trump was just relaying local racist rumors (he wasn't, it was entirely fabricated), would he be justified in it? There was absolutely zero evidence of it, and there still isn't. It's just a lie in service of fueling hatred toward the most poorest people in this country. Fascism 101.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      as POTUS, maybe not repeating unconfirmed information as fact would be the better move.
      - ETH_start 1y ago
        He represents the people. And he wasn't POTUS, he was a presidential candidate, relaying what his potential constituents were concerned about.
    - cguess 1y ago
      The mayor of the town (a Republican) came out and straight up said Trump was lying about his town. The only people reporting it could barely point to the town on a map.
    - lovich 1y ago
- amitrip 1y ago
  [dead]
- ulfw 1y ago
  You willfully ignore the 'Big Beautiful Bill' which will make the poor poorer, taking Medicaid from millions of people and making the richest of the rich richer with tax breaks.
jasondigitized 1y ago
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket" - Lyndon Johnson
ryandrake 1y ago
This one isn't even about middle class vs. poor. The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth. It's all about picking out-groups, making them into enemies, and inflicting cruelty on them. That's what that side really wants out of their government. They have a long list of perceived enemies who they are expecting to be able to deliver cruelty to once they're done with immigrants.
- rolandog 1y ago
  > The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth. Sure. The rich (R) electorate gladly watch how the non-rich (R) electorate has taken the bait and is happy chasing after the newly othered. They won't be happy if the non-rich republicans start taking their aim at lobbying, unfair tax-breaks for the rich, or any form of taxation that prevents them from keeping their ill-gotten wealth.
  - leereeves 1y ago
    This line of thinking seems out of touch with the situation in LA. I'm only watching from a distance, and I can certainly believe that the media has misrepresented the situation, but I think there must be genuine rioting there, because the mayor has declared a curfew. https://lacity.gov/highlights/curfew-announced-downtown-los-angeles https://lacity.gov/highlights/curfew-announced-downtown-los-... While the two parties fight about specific measures (as they always do), and don't trust one another at all, they both agree that extreme measures are appropriate in LA right now. This discussion is about the situation in LA, and not just a generic partisan dispute we could read on any political discussion, right?
    - acdha 1y ago
      The curfew is because the force escalation has inspired more protests. When they called out the national guard, it was at the level of sports fans. The subsequent provocations have caused an escalation, and the mayor’s curfew is an attempt to break that cycle - and it’s still far below the level where a military response would be justified.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
And power. Like their power over this young girl trying to go home: Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l88mhj/lapd_shoots_an_innocent_bystander_at_close_range/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l88mhj/lap... Old dead link: https://www.reddit.com/r/chaoticgood/comments/1l8ax0z/protestor_holding_camera_comes_to_young_womans/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chaoticgood/comments/1l8ax0z/protes... Remember, less lethal does not mean non-lethal and doesn't mean it can't cause enough damage to impact someone's quality of life forever.
- rkagerer 1y ago
  Poignant video. The cameraperson or another bystander should have called 911, asked for ambulance (and maybe fire dept) to attend. In addition to medical care, that would at least get some higher degree of paperwork going from an accountability perspective.
- leereeves 1y ago
  Definitely a disturbing abuse of power, but it's LAPD. Where's the connection to Republicans?
  - aisenik 1y ago
    "Blue lives" flags are intensely fascist, unpatriotic symbology and an explicit desecration of the American flag, that might be a good place to start your research. State-sanctioned organized crime by white supremacist terrorists, that's the connection with Republicans. They pardoned the insurrectionists that violently captured the capital building and pay off murderers whose crimes achieve their political goals. It's mostly happening out in the open, brazenly. We're not rational machines, we're easily manipulated and it takes less energy to settle into beliefs others want us to have. "Flood the zone" works but reality is still happening.
- wickedsight 1y ago
  So... I come from a country where police are still mostly respected. They also don't use rubber bullets usually. From my point of view, this person was disobeying orders from police, which gives them the right to use force. Is a rubber bullet an appropriate amount of force? Probably not, but I don't see this video as a completely one sided interaction with one party being wrong.
jasonm23 1y ago
this is more like that gilded age robber barron saying: I can pay half the poor to kill the other half.

Yeah, the whole platform is about Othering. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the middle class that the poor are the cause of all their problems.

falcor84 1y ago

I'm confused. I don't recall anyone ever saying that we need to get rid of the poor, but rather that we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor. Did I miss my scheduled indoctrination message?

dfxm12 1y ago
I don't recall anyone ever saying... Don't focus on words. Focus on actions. For example, the action of deploying the military on Americans does not make conditions better for us. Quite the contrary. The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. That money could be going to education, school lunches, Medicaid, building bridges, etc. But it isn't. it is only going to stroke the president's ego. Most of his actions, EO's, deals, bills, etc., fall into this category.
- dotancohen 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - ty6853 1y ago
    I don't know it re-establishes order but rather teaches the populace to up the ante. While I don't condone repeating history, it is instructive to look at history. When this military-type response was done at Waco, Timothy McViegh looked at that (he was there) and took out 10x as many feds as they took out citizens. And it sparked a very long period of militia movements, etc.
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      Are Feds not citizens in the US? You guys have a stark division between the government employees and the not-government-employees. Isn't the US government "for the people, by the people"? Serious question. I'm not disputing what you said, rather I'm trying to understand it.
      - deleted 1y ago
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      - ty6853 1y ago
        No feds aren't citizens in the US in any conventional sense. They have qualified immunity and a special kind of sovereign immunity that even state and local police do not have. They can initiate violence whereas citizens cannot. They can shoot a fleeing person as a citizen cannot. They can lie to you freely but if you lie to them (their interpretation of a lie), a felony. They generally can't be held accountable unless they are dumb enough to say the quiet parts out loud, and even then usually not. They are also effectively impossible to sue, so you'll probably never see any justice in the courts if they act unlawfully. Even if manage to get the lawsuit going they will play fuck-fuck games with jurisdiction until you lose (as I found out when trying to sue feds for stripping me naked, cavity searching me, and executing a fraudulent warrant on a fabricated dog alert -- no one would take my case because they had lost similar cases every time).
  - sleepybrett 1y ago
    They weren't rioting until the crackdown on the peaceful protest started.
  - jvanderbot 1y ago
    Yes, if we focus on actions, the action of causing public disorder is a glaring example of things we do not want in civil society. We also do not want tanks in our streets. Both seem like bad things, honestly, so I'm wondering how we got here.
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - trust_bt_verify 1y ago
        Reposting this everywhere doesn’t make it truthful.
        deleted 1y ago
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        dotancohen 1y ago
        Where have I reposted this? As for not being true, are the newspapers lying? Are those photographs fakes?
      - throwaway894345 1y ago
        > Clearly if these people torching the cars are waving foreign flags, they are a foreign enemy and thus the military is appropriate, no? No. Torching cars is already a crime and the city and state were already restoring order. The kind of flag waved while a car is torched does not change the calculus. Critically, a US citizen does not cease to be a US citizen because they waved a foreign flag; we have free speech in the United States, and flag-waving is protected by the first amendment. Also worth noting that none of this would have happened if the regime didn't deliberately provoke it in the first place.
        alxfoster 1y ago
        Honest question: how does this calculus change when the person waiving a foreign flag on a burned out vehicle is actually not a citizen and armed with a weapon.
  - ChicagoDave 1y ago
    This is the lie. At every step, immigration agents and police have instigated the violence. There are no riots. People are protesting and blocking access to vulnerable people. LA is not on fire. These incidents are in very small geographic areas even though media would suggest it’s widespread. People are pushing back when rubber bullets and tear gas are being used, illegally. U.S. citizens have a right to protest. This is baked into our constitution.
  - code_for_monkey 1y ago
    You give away the game right here. You don't consider 'rioters' americans, you're already othering them right in the question. Fascism 101!
    - freedomben 1y ago
      GP said they don't live in the US, it's possible English isn't even their first language. If they are a non-native speaker and just made a translation/wording mistake, you might feel like a pretty big asshole twisting that to call them a fascist (which word btw, is pretty overloaded and has become essentially meaningless to a large number of people). It's also quite possible they mean "Americans" in a general sense in that the Marines are not being turned loose on the American public. They are being focused on the rioters specifically. Obligatory self-declaration since you and many others will probably jump to conclusions about my opinion (as for whatever reason, we seem incapable of nuance even to the point of understanding that not everything in life is completely black or white), even though I've said nothing of it until now: I think Trump's actions are grotesque, authoritarian, and fascist, and it really pisses me off.
      - dttze 1y ago
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    - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
      > You give away the game right here. You don't consider 'rioters' americans, you're already othering them right in the question. Fascism 101! If they are non-citizens, they are not american. Pretty cut and dry distinction. Nothing fascist about this.
      - simtel20 1y ago
        I have neither seen nor heard anything that would lead me to believe most of the protesters are non-citizens or non-resident. You are not providing any evidence, just conveniently excusing this overreach by the executive branch by ignoring the rights of the protesters with a facile lie.
  - johnQdeveloper 1y ago
    > I can understand having the military in the streets, when the news is full of people waving foreign flags while torching vehicles in the streets. Yes but the news (in the US) is a fully for profit organizations most of which are owned by the right-wing folks. (i.e. Much of the newspapers, CNN, Fox News are run by boards that are right-leaning) They are intentionally pushing a narrative that the family I have in the area believes is simply a very small number of incidents that are nowhere near as bad as what is presented. > This does not look like the military being deployed on Americans, rather it looks like the military being deployed on rioters. Whether those rioters are Americans or illegal immigrants really doesn't matter for the purposes of reestablishing order. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/posse-comitatus-act-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/poss... I suggest you stop looking at this through the lens of an Israeli and do some research on the US system of laws :) Deploying the military "on rioters" and whether they are "Americans or illegals" is actually quite important. Using the military as a police force is illegal and the only real open legal question is if using it against "invaders" who are not here legally is technically allowed. You are acting like these people are Hamas, when in reality, they are nowhere close to even 5% as dangerous.
    - susiecambria 1y ago
      And the media and federal government citing the waving of foreign flags is another distraction. As Americans, and people living in the USA, we are allowed to do this. It's a Constitutional protection. Again, all of this is a distraction from what the prez is doing.
      - johnQdeveloper 1y ago
        Correct. But for some reason "flags" and "not white/christian/jewish" somehow makes them the OTHER TRIBE and therefore the laws don't matter to conservatives. I don't feel particularly safe in the US with the government making lists of people like me based on the medication we are taking. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-05-02/is-rfk-jr-creating-an-autism-registry-what-to-know https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-05-02/... Its not new, but the centralization of these datasets isn't making me feel like anything other than a target.
  - throwaway894345 1y ago
    For the most part, the protestors are peaceful, not rioters, and there are plenty of scenes of police and national guard being marshaled against them. In one clip, a couple dozen police officers opened fire on a kid with a skateboard. In another, they open fire on a journalist giving a live report. In another, they're beating back protestors holding signs. And "reestablishing order" is an obvious farce, because the Trump administration was deliberately provoking this conflict by sending in masked agents to abduct people and at least in one instance, running over a protestor. The administration has been consistently escalating the conflict, which is not something you do to "reestablish order", but it is absolutely a tactic of 20th century authoritarians to acquire emergency powers which they then use to prevent elections, jail political opponents, etc.
  - HillRat 1y ago
    It looks like the military being deployed on rioters Leaving aside the equivalence of "protesting" with "rioting," the United States has robust Constitutional, common-law and statutory guardrails against the use of the military domestically. The US military cannot, absent an insurrection in which regular legal order cannot be maintained, be deployed against US residents. The use of the military in the past has been limited to what were deemed by federal and state officials full insurrections (e.g., the Whiskey Rebellion), or, in the civil rights era, in response to governors affirmatively refusing to enforce the law regarding an end to segregation and the integration of public institutions. In this case we have state and local officials explicitly stating that the factual predicates of an insurrection aren't being satisfied (the protests cover a few square blocks in a metropolitan area that by itself is larger than Lebanon or Kosovo, in a state larger than Japan or Sweden). While courts traditionally give deference to executive determinations of this sort, they aren't beyond judicial review, and this is (I would argue) clearly pretextual. What we're seeing here, conversely, is an attempt to sidestep this clear principle through not-particularly-clever tricks and semantic gamesmanship; for example, mobilizing Marines to "protect federal property," but then DHS officially asking DOD to give active duty forces arrest power. This is clearly unconstitutional and illegal, but, as with much we've seen recently, the hope appears to be that if you change the facts on the ground quickly enough, the clear illegality of the actions can be ignored. In addition, the federalization of a state National Guard against the will of the state is unprecedented; I don't know of any previous example of this happening. In the American system, even though the National Guard is a vestige of the old state militias, it's clear that the states are at least assumed to have plenary authority over their own forces absent an invasion or insurrection.
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      > Leaving aside the equivalence of "protesting" with "rioting," Is not burning cars crossing the line from protesting to rioting?
      - mensetmanusman 1y ago
        Yes. Some protests are riots, all riots are protests.
  - atakan_gurkan 1y ago
    It is the other way around. The military is being deployed on Americans. Whether they are rioters or not doesn't matter for establishing an authoritarian state.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Since you're not American, a brief overview of our military: 1. We have 5 or 6 branches of military. The important one here is the national guard, ones meant to aid Americans in emergency or crisis. 2. The other branches have huge limits on when the federal government can deploy them domestically The Posse Comitatus Act that came as a result of the US civil war covers this.so having marines being deployed is a huge overreach. 3. The vast majority of the time, the national guard is managed by the state Governor, and Gavin Newsom has explicitly opposed this decision. The federal government taking command of the national guard is an exploit of The Insurrection Act that's been going on for a while. All thst context being given: Newsom is right. This isn't trying to establish order, this is a meticulous escalation on a conservative president in a liberal city to make a show of force. For reference, there's reportedly some 600 rioters and they sent out 2000 (now 4000) national guard and 709 marines. This is all without including the LAPD which is comprised of over 8000 officers. The amount of money and resources spent on this is utter overkill. And part of the point. They want an excuse to call martial law so badly.
  - mensetmanusman 1y ago
    Military is being deployed to protect federal buildings like what was done during the king riots.
    - bobmcnamara 1y ago
      The marines deployed in 92 marched with the national guard and LAPD. The marines shot up houses in Compton.
      - mensetmanusman 1y ago
        Yes, that’s the famous case where the marines were shot at multiple times with shotguns and returned fire.
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- ElectronCharge 1y ago
  > The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. The funds for the "United States Army 250th Anniversary Parade" were allocated before President Trump was elected, during the Biden debacle. The fact that it falls on June 14th is what is called a "coincidence". Be careful about blindly accepting propaganda as fact.
  - throwaway894345 1y ago
    I would agree with your "coincidence" explanation if it weren't for the consistent pattern of "coincidences" in which Trump does something dictator-like and right-wingers rush to his defense with "coincidence". It's just a coincidence that all of these foreign diplomats invest in his meme coin or some family business and then suddenly are granted meetings with the president! It's just a coincidence that Qatar sends him a luxury airliner and his rhetoric about Qatar does a 180 degree flip! It's just a coincidence that he tried to interfere in a presidential election! It's just a coincidence that he consistently claims Article I and Article III powers for himself! It's just a coincidence that he's rounding up people and sending them to foreign prisons! I've never met someone so unlucky /s
    - ElectronCharge 1y ago
      Are you claiming that the Army anniversary date being on DJT's birthday ISN'T a coincidence? That must take some crazy mental gymnastics... As to your other points, most aren't coincidences, though some aren't real either.
      - weberc2 1y ago
        > Are you claiming that the Army anniversary date being on DJT's birthday ISN'T a coincidence? That must take some crazy mental gymnastics... You should read the post you're responding to. It clearly addresses this very question. > though some aren't real either I think you mean, "though I'm not familiar with some of those cases"--otherwise a citation is needed.
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fooqux 1y ago
Maybe not "get rid of" but plenty of other fingers are pointed at them. They get "free housing" (which they fill with drugs and kids), they get "free food" (which they use instead to buy alcohol), they get "free cellphones" (which they use to run drug rings), etc. It's usually about how the poor get Foo for free, which everyone else has to pay for, and also about how they misuse Foo for nefarious reasons. The commons then get riled up, either because "Hey, why do they get free housing when I have to spend tons of money?" or because of all the nefarious things they supposedly do.
- dylan604 1y ago
  When you say "they" are you talking about the local US citizens doing these things, because "they" are doing it too. Comments like yours that word it so that it sounds like all crimes are being committed non-citizens which is such a fallacy it's laughable.
  - fooqux 1y ago
    I used the word "they" on purpose, because the target seems to change often. It might be lower class, it might be immigrants (illegal and even legal), it might be $racial_minority, political faction, etc,. As long as it's a group that people can blame, it works.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  If people say the "free Foo" being offered, I wage many would choose to keep buying better quality Foo. These people are not offered luxury. It can barely be considered essentials. Also: Food stamps can't buy alcohol (let alone drugs).
  - t-3 1y ago
    I agree with your point, but food stamps can be used to buy drugs and alcohol... Buyer generally pays ~50% cash value. Very common for addicts to hand the EBT card over to dealer on the 3rd, but the vast majority receiving assistance use it honestly.
righthand 1y ago
Go ask the same people railing about immigrants, what their thoughts on homeless people might be.
vel0city 1y ago
> we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor Explain how work requirements to qualify for Medicaid makes conditions better to ensure there are fewer poor people. Doesn't this just harm people who can't work due to disability, and practically ensure they will never get better enough to work and contribute to society? Sure saves a lot of money for wealthy people though.
- ETH_start 1y ago
  The work requirements only apply to the able-bodied. Coddling people like this isn't doing them any favors.
  - 542354234235 1y ago
    But isn’t Medicaid just healthcare. Being able to go to a doctor when you are sick or injured doesn’t really sound like coddling someone, “able-bodied” or not. Maybe I am misunderstanding and Medicaid is actually some new fancy handbag.
    - msgodel 1y ago
      If finding work is this hard maybe we should be slowing down immigration.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        Most here aren't arguing it's exceptionally difficult to find some kind of a job or education opportunity to meet the requirements. We're mostly arguing about adding all the additional bureaucracy to add additional requirements that will need to be documented and validated. And arguing that many who should be eligible for exceptions will end up not eligible because of some paperwork or bureaucratic oversight. There is about the same amount of money allotted to help states stand up new programs to validate these requirements as the federal cost of Trump's birthday party.
        1y ago
sigwinch 1y ago
I look for the message of helping the poor, but it’s frustrating that politicians can evade it and their self-attained devotion to Christianity go unchallenged. The phrases to look for are “infested” and “purge”. Some politicians consider low-income to be a character of a person or a group (all the way up to a nation). Those same politicians laud language from Hitler about infestations and metaphors of racial purity.
- ETH_start 1y ago
  Jesus didn't believe in IRS prisons. Don't look to politicians to impose Christian beliefs on people.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    You should try telling that to Ohio as of late.
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    Huh? "Render unto Caesar" and all that. IRS falls under Caesar, caring for the health of others falls under God I.E. a requirement to be a Christian.
    - goatlover 1y ago
      Did the historical Jesus really say that? He wasn't one of the religious authorities who had a deal with Rome. Many Jews didn't like Roman occupation as seen by the revolts. If Jesus had issues with the Jewish authorities, he probably did with the Roman ones as well. Apocalyptic Jews would have believed God was coming soon to overthrow the kingdoms of the world, which were controlled by evil spirts.
    - ETH_start 1y ago
      That was an answer to a trick question. The inquisitor was trying to get him to admit to defying Roman rules so he could get him imprisoned. And he gave an answer that the coins that have Roman emperor faces on them belong to the emperor, implying people could stop using those coins. Even the most generous pro-government take on that passage would have him believing that the state should be separate from the church, so church doctrine should not be imposed through state decree.
ty6853 1y ago
"we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor" and similar arguments is how the government scams you and everyone else into their racket. You always had the option to give to the poor, you didn't need a mob going in your pockets to do that. "But muh roads and hospitals and police." Lol, that is covered by the ~0.5% of my salary I pay in property taxes and a little extra in use taxes and county and state sales tax. The federal portion, what do I get? Massive subsidies for people who stick their boot down my throat, military provocations that make us all far less safer, the worlds largest prison population (and near the top per capita). None of it makes sense -- the stuff that matters was achieved with the feds spending 2% of the gdp (and I might add, pretty much open immigration). "Helping the poor" is one of the worst mistakes the USA ever undertook.
- vel0city 1y ago
  > You always had the option to give to the poor History shows we've historically been pretty shitty at doing that at an individual level. > The federal portion, what do I get? Ignoring FICA, a large chunk is debt servicing, public health, earned income tax credits, food assistance, SSI, science programs, global trade security, and more. Most isn't "people who stick their boot down [your] throat", unless you're someone looking to abuse workers or food production or happens to be outside in LA these days.
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zzzeek 1y ago
not "the poor". immigrants here's the correct indoctrination message https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-migrants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-int... > Former President Donald J. Trump, in an interview broadcast Sunday, doubled down on his description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that echoes Hitler. > “Why do you use words like ‘vermin’ and ‘poisoning of the blood’?” Howard Kurtz, the media critic and interviewer, asked on Fox News. “The press, as you know, immediately reacts to that by saying, ‘Well, that’s the kind of language that Hitler and Mussolini used.’” > “Because our country is being poisoned,” Mr. Trump responded.
deeg 1y ago
"They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats." That was the president lying on a nationally televised debate, the purpose of which was to lay the groundwork for exporting poor people who were here legally.
- ETH_start 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - aredox 1y ago
    No local reported that. It was all a lie. Should Trump also relay blood libels against Jews?
  - thrance 1y ago
    Even if Trump was just relaying local racist rumors (he wasn't, it was entirely fabricated), would he be justified in it? There was absolutely zero evidence of it, and there still isn't. It's just a lie in service of fueling hatred toward the most poorest people in this country. Fascism 101.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    as POTUS, maybe not repeating unconfirmed information as fact would be the better move.
    - ETH_start 1y ago
      He represents the people. And he wasn't POTUS, he was a presidential candidate, relaying what his potential constituents were concerned about.
  - cguess 1y ago
    The mayor of the town (a Republican) came out and straight up said Trump was lying about his town. The only people reporting it could barely point to the town on a map.
  - lovich 1y ago
amitrip 1y ago
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ulfw 1y ago
You willfully ignore the 'Big Beautiful Bill' which will make the poor poorer, taking Medicaid from millions of people and making the richest of the rich richer with tax breaks.

jasondigitized 1y ago

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket" - Lyndon Johnson

ryandrake 1y ago

This one isn't even about middle class vs. poor. The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth. It's all about picking out-groups, making them into enemies, and inflicting cruelty on them. That's what that side really wants out of their government. They have a long list of perceived enemies who they are expecting to be able to deliver cruelty to once they're done with immigrants.

rolandog 1y ago
> The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth. Sure. The rich (R) electorate gladly watch how the non-rich (R) electorate has taken the bait and is happy chasing after the newly othered. They won't be happy if the non-rich republicans start taking their aim at lobbying, unfair tax-breaks for the rich, or any form of taxation that prevents them from keeping their ill-gotten wealth.
- leereeves 1y ago
  This line of thinking seems out of touch with the situation in LA. I'm only watching from a distance, and I can certainly believe that the media has misrepresented the situation, but I think there must be genuine rioting there, because the mayor has declared a curfew. https://lacity.gov/highlights/curfew-announced-downtown-los-angeles https://lacity.gov/highlights/curfew-announced-downtown-los-... While the two parties fight about specific measures (as they always do), and don't trust one another at all, they both agree that extreme measures are appropriate in LA right now. This discussion is about the situation in LA, and not just a generic partisan dispute we could read on any political discussion, right?
  - acdha 1y ago
    The curfew is because the force escalation has inspired more protests. When they called out the national guard, it was at the level of sports fans. The subsequent provocations have caused an escalation, and the mayor’s curfew is an attempt to break that cycle - and it’s still far below the level where a military response would be justified.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

And power. Like their power over this young girl trying to go home: Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l88mhj/lapd_shoots_an_innocent_bystander_at_close_range/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l88mhj/lap... Old dead link: https://www.reddit.com/r/chaoticgood/comments/1l8ax0z/protestor_holding_camera_comes_to_young_womans/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chaoticgood/comments/1l8ax0z/protes... Remember, less lethal does not mean non-lethal and doesn't mean it can't cause enough damage to impact someone's quality of life forever.

rkagerer 1y ago
Poignant video. The cameraperson or another bystander should have called 911, asked for ambulance (and maybe fire dept) to attend. In addition to medical care, that would at least get some higher degree of paperwork going from an accountability perspective.
leereeves 1y ago
Definitely a disturbing abuse of power, but it's LAPD. Where's the connection to Republicans?
- aisenik 1y ago
  "Blue lives" flags are intensely fascist, unpatriotic symbology and an explicit desecration of the American flag, that might be a good place to start your research. State-sanctioned organized crime by white supremacist terrorists, that's the connection with Republicans. They pardoned the insurrectionists that violently captured the capital building and pay off murderers whose crimes achieve their political goals. It's mostly happening out in the open, brazenly. We're not rational machines, we're easily manipulated and it takes less energy to settle into beliefs others want us to have. "Flood the zone" works but reality is still happening.
wickedsight 1y ago
So... I come from a country where police are still mostly respected. They also don't use rubber bullets usually. From my point of view, this person was disobeying orders from police, which gives them the right to use force. Is a rubber bullet an appropriate amount of force? Probably not, but I don't see this video as a completely one sided interaction with one party being wrong.

jasonm23 1y ago

this is more like that gilded age robber barron saying: I can pay half the poor to kill the other half.