Executive order to resettle "white South African refugees"
I knew this kind of shit would happen. This is why it's important to keep an eye on US politics and why US news always kinda fits in 'world' news. Because like it or not, we all seem to be under the spell of the USA's influence.
Take these European variety ass flies following the waft of stink coming from Donald Trump's backside for example. "Make Europe Great Again"? Apparently Europe is joining China in the game of making cheap knockoffs of famous American brands. Or maybe it's just going full circle, considering that MAGA is just a knockoff brand of Nazism. Which was long ago but not long ago enough for everyone involved in it or brainwashed by it to have shuffled off this mortal coil yet.
I'm South African and from where I'm standing, both New Zealand and Australia seem to be popular places to move to. I'm not going to claim that most white South Africans aren't conservative bigots because I would be lying. But there are also a lot of good reasons to leave this place, I'm afraid.
My sister lives in NZ (for no reason other than she met her now husband who is a Kiwi while traveling overseas after school). And after being there for a visit, it's hard to put into the words how it feels to experience a country where things are actually run well. And there's no trash anywhere. And even the toilets are modern and efficient (something I noticed because there was a drought in South Africa at the time so I was watching flushes). And you can walk down the road with headphones on, listening to music on your phone without looking over your shoulder in case you get mugged (which I have been 3 times now).
Coming back to South Africa and driving down a road filled with trash and stray dogs, I could actually almost physically see and feel the black cloud coming over me again. And it hits me hard because having spent my childhood in the '90s when Mandela had been released and the ANC was taking over, I had huge hope back then. As a child, I bought into the hype hard. And one Jacob Zuma later, it's all fucked.
But yeah, fuck these racist farmers. I'm gonna sound a bit heartless here but I went to boarding school in a conservative shithole one horse town. And wherever a farm murder occurred (which was twice or three times over the course of me being there I think), there was never a time where there weren't whispers about how those farmers treated their workers like borderline sub humans. I'm not condoning murder but I think our society will be better off without the people who live like it's still 1980 and apartheid.
I wouldn't want them to go to the USA though because I like a lot of Americans and they've already got their own backwards hillbilly confederates to deal with. I don't think it's fair that they get more.
They signed up to make everyone else suffer and now they're shocked and dismayed that they're probably going to suffer too. I feel for everyone that has to share a country with people that would throw them to the wolves first chance they get while demanding unearned respect for themselves. But if I were religious, I'd tell these people to rot in hell.
Seriously, if sanity ever returns to the world, I hope that the lesson we walk away with is that right wingers, conservatives and religious fundies should never be allowed anywhere near positions of power again. Because when they have it, their whole aim is to uplift themselves and only themselves while fucking over everyone else in society.
Thank you! I will take a good look at that a little later when I'm in front of my laptop. Kind of a useless reply but I don't want to come across like I'm ignoring this either while I still go on shitposting elsewhere.
Oh yeah on that I agree. I was merely trying to provide context for South Africa's love for Russia but honestly, the Soviet Union and Russia aren't even the same country. But people on the ground who aren't that well educated or versed in history don't see it that way.
Interesting to hear about Sweden. I can't say they or any of the Scandinavian countries have ever come up in history class or even really featured much in geopolitical shenanigans involving South Africa for as long as I've been alive and able to form memories.
May I ask where you get the stats from? Not out of doubt, I'm just interested. And trying to search "ANC apartheid era funding" wasn't very helpful.
Interesting question. Not something that was taught in school or that I've really seen discussed. Going by the Wikipedia article on the ANC, it would appear that the answer is the Soviet Union, as I would've expected:
The animosity of Western regimes was partly explained by the Cold War context, and by the considerable amount of support – both financial and technical – that the ANC received from the Soviet Union.
I can't see it being the USA considering that both Mandela and the ANC were on US terror watch lists from what looks like the 1960s up until 2008.
It also accused South Africa of supporting “bad actors” in the world, including the militant Palestinian group Hamas, Russia and Iran.
In case anyone wonders why South Africa tends to side with countries like Russia, it's because for all of the finger wagging and strongly worded letters that the Western world did about apartheid, nations like the Soviet Union were the only ones that actually bothered supporting the resistance in any meaningful way.
The Western world was too busy looking for communist boogeymen everywhere, so while they condemned apartheid on the surface and in the news, they actually supported the apartheid government in their fight against the 'evil commies' via proxy with Israel. Israel and the old SA government were BFFs and a lot of apartheid South Africa's military equipment was Israeli and American.
Haha I use adblock (uBlock Origin to be specific) in Firefox but I was talking about the app in particular. I actually have a hosts level ad blocker installed too but it's disabled a lot of the time because every now and then it breaks something and I'm too lazy to toggle and reboot any time that happens.
Honestly though, I didn't mind Reddit ads that much. I've spent the last few years questioning gender and shit and honestly, watching targeted advertising try to figure me out on various platforms has been oddly fun and affirming in a lot of cases that I'm on the right track, in the right place and asking the right questions.
Not that I'm defending it, no ads is of course better but I've seen much worse and more obnoxious styles of advertising than the way Reddit handled it. For all their faults, if they had to go down the advertising route, at least they managed to keep it somewhat more classy than almost everyone else.
I remember the cheat but not the exact game lol. Definitely Sega Mega Drive though.
ABRACADABRA (R for d-pad right, D for d-pad down).
Going by a Google search it could've been Vectorman or Ecco 2. Or both because I played both a lot back then.
I'm half expecting his next executive order to be that all ocean cleanup efforts must immediately cease and that in fact dumping in the ocean is now mandatory and anyone caught trying to dispose of trash sustainably will be jailed.
Seriously, it's gone long past the point where anyone has the slightest excuse of supporting this orange painted clown in his blonde wig and comically oversized tie without just looking like evil pieces of shit.
It's like he's actively making his way through a list of anything actually good that society has managed to achieve in the last few decades and dismantling it. I mean, we all hate cardboard straws but this clearly isn't about straws.
The guy seems to literally want to see smog fill the air and plastic fill the oceans. While simultaneously making sure that everyone is as fucking miserable as possible in terms of both human rights and economy. So what the fuck is anyone's excuse for supporting this? I don't believe that there is anything a Trump supporter could tell me now that would convince me that they're not just evil, cruel, profoundly stupid, walking talking pieces of shit.
I only noticed this in my feed now, so I'm late but I guess that's how it is on a platform with relatively low activity.
I also used to "fall in love" easily when I was young, so I feel like I can have quite a bit to say here. It's going to be a long post though.
If you're anything like I was, it almost feels like what being bipolar must feel like because you're fully aware that you're behaving badly but it's like the chemicals in your brain have gone haywire so you're not completely in the driver's seat. And I just want to say, that's not 'love'. It's a slow release poison that is killing you and any chance of love.
Personally I actually just bowed out of relationships for a long time because I knew that I was the problem that needed to solved first. I would maybe suggest making the conscious decision to stop thinking of relationships or “possible future partners” as even being a goal for a while. Make friends along the way but the person that you need to get to know first is yourself. And don't completely shut yourself off to having a bit of naughty fun once in a while either. But don't ever expect it or feel like you're owed it and if it comes along, do it with the mentality of no strings attached as a default instead of immediately seeing wedding bells in the future.
Just be careful though because once you learn to be happy in your relationship with yourself, it can be addictive. I kept it going for a little too long myself, so now I'm at the point where even though I wouldn't mind having a special someone, the idea of sharing a bed and a cupboard etc. kinda repulses me. I'm going to have to find a very specific kind of person that wants both love and independence at the same time at this point lol.
But that's part of finding out who you are. In fact part of my problem is that I'm at the very least aromantic. I just do not know how to receive or give the same cues that everyone else seems to be tuned into. So I mimicked my idea of 'romance' from romcoms and shit. And (metaphorically speaking because I wasn't quite that bad) I thought that serenading her with a guitar outside her window or chasing her down at the airport was how it was done and not borderline stalker behavior in the eyes of the person being 'serenaded' or chased. Also (and it took me a long time to come to this conclusion because I come from a country where we weren't educated on all this stuff), I have come to find that I am actually somewhere around non-binary in the gender spectrum and I think that people around me could tell that I wasn't completely cis long before I knew.
That's my journey though. You need to find your own answers. My point is that now I am better equipped with the knowledge that I need to try again. Some people have it all figured out from the start, some of us take a while longer.
Aaand sorry to keep going on but I'm also going to punt Relationship Anarchy. It's actually more about polyamory but I think that there's a lot of good ideas in here that can be applied to monogamous relationships or even just friendships. Namely as far as your jealousy issues go, I'm going to quote two sections.
Love and respect instead of entitlement:
Deciding to not base a relationship on a foundation of entitlement is about respecting others’ independence and self-determination. Your feelings for a person or your history together does not make you entitled to command and control a partner to comply with what is considered normal to do in a relationship. Explore how you can engage without stepping over boundaries and personal beliefs. Rather than looking for compromises in every situation, let loved ones choose paths that keep their integrity intact, without letting this mean a crisis for the relationship. Staying away from entitlement and demands is the only way to be sure that you are in a relationship that is truly mutual. Love is not more “real” when people compromise for each other because it’s part of what’s expected.
Trust is better
Choosing to assume that your partner does not wish you harm leads you down a much more positive path than a distrustful approach where you need to be constantly validated by the other person to trust that they are there with you in the relationship. Sometimes people have so much going on inside themselves that there’s just no energy left to reach out and care for others. Create the kind of relationship where withdrawing is both supported and quickly forgiven, and give people lots of chances to talk, explain, see you and be responsible in the relationship. Remember your core values and to take care of yourself though!
And that is that. Sorry for the essay.
Reddit is definitely trying the ragebait thing from what I saw before I left. With however the algorithm works there these days, /r/all actually got pretty good at showing me more of what I'm interested in (same as adverts to be honest, I did not mind getting random romance fantasy novels and shit advertised to me), which made me even more suspicious every time it would slip /r/conservative into my feed, even if the post only had like 10 upvotes.
And maybe it's just in my imagination but I would especially start seeing subs like conservative after literally just being active in subreddits that shit on conservatives. So it felt a lot to me like Reddit's algorithm was actively trying to bait me at times to get into fights in places I should just ignore or block.
I think there's about 3 different communities in Blåhaj that are for asexual, aromantic, agender people, or combinations thereof.
There appears to be no active asexual community
This seems to be a hurdle that Lemmy needs to get over in general. Communities are inactive because any new users checking them out see no activity and go elsewhere. So it's a catch 22 or vicious circle or whatever. I'm guilty of this too.
But really, these communities will never become active if everyone keeps doing this. It has to start somewhere. I'm willing to bet that if you choose one of the Blåhaj communities, you'll probably get responses from other people that have been waiting for more activity too.
Genz didn't even have these influences. They had Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate.
Definitely agreed with this point and I haven't completely lost hope yet that these kids will wake up and see what's going on. I'm 10x more willing to forgive and give more chances to gen Z that have grown up being brainwashed by garbage than I am as far as my own peers and older are concerned.
I'm starting to firmly believe that the biggest cause of all of this is enshittification. And I'm not just talking about Facebook but also the music, movies and games industries. In fact I recently made a post ranting about how Sonic the Hedgehog has been reduced from an anti-authoritarian icon to a fluffy teddy bear that's all about 'family' and top 40 pop and McDonald's references.
The grifters like Joe Rogan that showed up aren't the cause but rather a symptom of an entertainment industry that stopped producing art and started chasing lines on graphs that go up and down and giving us nothing but safe, middle of the road, lowest common denominator slop. So there was an opening for anything other than that slop. While I grew up with NOFX shouting about how the idiots are taking over, these kids grew up with fucking Jay Z and Kanye and whatever other fucking assholes singing about dancing in the club and walking around like living billboards for Ray Ban and Nike.
IMO, when the revolution comes, the people currently running things in the entertainment industry need to be amongst the first to see rope.
Yup. This is what right wingers and Christians do. I've often seen people try to claim that right wingers in the USA are different from the rest of the world and I've regularly heard the "not all Christians" line too.
But as someone from a country that used to have a system called 'apartheid', I can tell you that this is exactly what fucking right wing conservative Christians do when given half the chance (and when they don't have the chance, they cry about being discriminated against). Plus every single Christian asshole teacher and authority figure I had to deal with in high school and boarding school were exactly the types that would embrace and love authoritarianism.
Personally I am not shocked at all that these people are doing this. What I am shocked about is that so many fucking idiots actually believed these little fascists when they claimed to be pro free speech and freedom in general. And I cannot put into words the disappointment I feel that so much of gen Z fell for this bullshit. The kids are supposed to be where the hope for the future is. But these kids turned into a bunch of fucking little bootlickers that support the kind of people I've fought against since I was a kid.
Is this guy just a little ass fly hanging around Trump's crappy nappy or something?
Any niche communities for TV shows and entertainment. Something nice about Reddit is that you can look up any random TV show, even obscure shit you watched as a kid that no one talks about anywhere else, and you'll probably find a community posting memes and fan theories and reviews about it.
It's probably gonna take a long time though because there's no exodus happening to here because Reddit banned all the TV show subs. It's just gonna probably get more political and angry here every time there's an exodus.
Oh look, the kiddie fiddlers and book burners that accuse others of being pedos and anti free speech are accusing people of things again.
I know that the Firefox subreddit was doing this a couple of years ago. Although I half suspect that they were using swear words as an excuse to remove any criticism of Firefox. And after multiple run ins with them and messaging them to ask why my comment was removed (no swearing isn't actually a listed rule in the sidebar), I'm pretty sure they just started doing it for shits and giggles too.
The last straw for me was when someone mentioned an old app and I said "holy crap, I remember that app!" Checked a couple minutes later in reveddit (which had become a habit when posting in Firefox) and sure enough, my comment was removed. That was the last time I ever went near that sub.
Oh come on now. Surely you've heard that expression before. I'm actually tempted to just block you because you're either a troll or just looking for a stick to beat the dog with and clearly not joining this conversation in any good faith.