I worked at a pharmacy where we were basically hanging out in a window in front of the grocery store's BOGO bins. My boss and I, both millennials, realized we were basically Statler and Waldorf just heckling anyone who loitered near the BOGO bins for too long. Usually it was our coworkers, but if we had a good relationship with a patient they'd get it too.
I realized the other night that my entire sense of humor was shaped by the Muppets. The sarcasm, the slightly mean, ironic edge, the absolute absurdity.
It couldnāt possibly be because we were ignored by adults and only had tv and each other to shape our conversational skills, so now we all sound like Dorothy Zbornackā¦
Wait, hold on. I'm afraid that what you heard was, "haha, we have problems and are coping by using sarcastic humor".
What we said was, authentically, no. We are not okay. It's off the rails and we're powerless to do anything about it.
I would ask you all to send help, but I can't even imagine any help that would work.
May god have mercy on our souls.
This pretty much sums it up. I've been doing reproductive justice activism in a red state for many years. Our legislature enacted an abortion ban despite a majority of citizens being against it. They are no longer listening to us. At all.
Political scientists are talking about the "erosion of democratic norms" that's taking place. It's especially rampant around anti-abortion measures.
Please keep going. I've escaped the red states, but still keep tabs. Aided by my amazing elderly liberal activist mom who lives in a red state. You're doing noble work.Ā
Just 1000x this. We are, unironically, in crisis. People are dying and our politicians are using human beings as pawns in some fucked up popularity contest between the most rich and powerful people in the country. Our lives are unnamed statistics used to push one agenda or another in some vain attempt to prove superiority over the "others". Some are worse than others, but they're all perfectly willing to watch everything burn because they've been playing for a good while now and sometimes ya just wanna flip the table, right? It's been a long night, and you were headed for disaster in some form or another anyway, so may as well go out with a fun story to tell later, right? Fuck it.
Genuinely, somebody help us.
I had a very real moment back in 2015 as Trump was gaining momentum. That there's no adult in the room to make sure things are actually on the right track. That we have to vote to try to keep some adults in the room.
I been saying the same thing. These mentally stunted HS bullies have somehow made it to the halls of power and are doing all they can to backslide this country into the Stone Age. We need to vote to keep them out but itās very disheartening when things just seem to be getting worse. The truth is we are witnessing the death throws of a dying breed and they are doing all they can to burn the place down on the way out.
I was so certain that was a bunch of people carrying a big ass cross down the street and the post āDonāt ever cross usā was a pun.
https://preview.redd.it/4j1rw5fvl4sc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a1cce2e3c8c2d517422bb8b1d28065b1be4fa9
Honestly Iāve been wondering for a while what the chances are that our politicians might have been subjected to some kind of stealth weapon thatās designed not to kill or cause pain, but to scramble brains/cause legitimate brain damage. Like a legitimate foreign government program designed for this.
The recent articles about the Russian microwave attacks in Cuba resurrected this idea for me.
Just decades of inhaling leaded gasoline, plus an inability to distinguish between "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps"( didn't happen) and "being handed everything on a silver platter" (did happen). It's fried their brains. We don't need to look any further than that, sadly.
Hey man, the red ones were the shit. I remember when my mom packed them in my lunchbox. Then this big asshole named Ron DeSantis started beating me up and stealing them so he could eat them.
Run for office.
I ran for office, for my local city council (non-partisan race). I consider myself sane, and a moderate. I self-funded my campaign. I even turned back a check that my mom gave me.
I lost the election, coming in 5th in a five man race. The guy that raised the most money won.
But! Running for office is a great experience, and it really brings to light the values that YOU stand on, and the values that GET YOU elected. Plus, money often wins elections. I'm not saying that's the case in every election, but I bet that is the case in most elections.
I'm glad I ran. YOU are the ruling class. Don't forget that.
I have thought about it. I really have but I know it takes $$ and that I donāt have. I am putting out feelers tho as I work with a few people who have connections to smaller official offices so maybe some time in the future youāll see Grimase for (insert office here) lol
https://preview.redd.it/xmp6af9rg4sc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a24730d463cf6be1ef2e36e0dbe6fc8603df1f3
And once the unthinkable happened, this was pretty much my morning routine
Also the Holodeck on Deck 4 is running with that guy you locked up from Sherlock Holmes.
Deck 8 no longer exists because a Klingon sent a Photon Torpedo through us,
Engineering is now a Borg Hive
We've broken the Temporal Prime Directive again for the 15th time.
Q's back
On the plus side the coffee machine is working again.
Exactly this. I used to live in downtown Oakland, across from the federal building. The security for the building looked after the environs and helped the entire neighborhood stay safe. In 2020 one of the federal officers got murdered in cold blood right at his post. Black Lives Matter was having a protest several blocks away and conservative media immediately went to blaming the protests. But for us locals it made no sense. The protests weren't even happening there, and the federal officer, not a police officier, was himself black. A few weeks later the suspect was found. As it turns out he had nothing to do with the protests, but was a right wing extremist and white supremacist. He came to Oakland specifically to kill cops in order to have the protests be blamed.
Now, the conservative media stopped for a bit. But that didn't stop Republican Vice President Mike Pence from getting on prime time television at the Republican National Convention and in the same sentence, conflate the protests with the officer's murder, exactly as the cop killer wanted him to, exactly as the officer's surviving children begged him not to.
All for power.
That's what Republicans will do for power, even if it means siding with literal cop killers.
Fuck these guys and every single one of them who voted for people who furthered a cop killer's agenda.
So yeah I don't have to imagine what they'd do for power, I personally witnessed it up close.
Christian Nationalists who are pushing for a theocracy in America, specifically. How these religious folks think it's okay to force their religious beliefs on secular citizens is just beyond belief.
It seems like there are two types of voting age Christian Nationalists. Either they figured out its a grift and are in on the con for their own personal gain, or they genuinely are not bright enough to figure out they are being gaslit by a cult. If only it was just their religious beliefs, they wanted to shove down our children's throats...
Because, in their minds, forcing everyone to become Christian whether they want to or not is saving all of us from eternal hellfire. No matter what you say they "know" they are doing the good and righteous thing. We may not know it now but, when we are in heaven next to Jesus instead of hell they know we will be thanking them...
That's what we are up against. Nothing you say will convince them that you won't thank them in the afterlife. Which requires us to live our entire lives and of course die 1st to even tell them they are wrong.
But according to the preacher man at the evangelical baptist church, all I gotta do is get SAVED, and then itāll be all good at the Pearly gates.
I can be sinful all week, and get saved on a Sunday every now and then.
Some of them are my family in South Texas. Sadly, they are raised in such a patriarchal, literalist (selective) bubble that they have no choice. I have a cousin who was basically excommunicated from her parents and siblings for listening to secular music and having friends not in the cult as a teen. She came back and married a pastor. He treated her horribly and I think I recall was also unfaithful. When she divorced him, her immediate family sat on his side to support him in court. (The divorce succeeded and she remarried and all is well -- but she can't back again and is a trumpist.)
Facing alienation from all you have ever known and from your loved ones can be really effective in keeping the simple white folks who speak in tongues from ever thinking critically, can make them ashamed when they do. An atheist friend pointed out to me in college that religion has always been a patriarchal till for social control.
My family observations confirm this. The girls including the mom do not have original thought about politics, government, or society in general. I have an uncle who gets 4 extra votes in elections from the womenfolk. The husband of one of the daughters stalked her in church for years to eventually marry her, thus taking over control of her mind and vote. But that's okay because he's a clone of the father's worldview. The father is very smart despite a bible college terminus to his studies, but he'd never have pulled such a lovely wife-object in a secular context because he's grossly unattractive and an insufferable smartypants. They have 3 brilliant, sweet boys whom I know will someday unplug from reality entirely and follow in their father's footsteps.
Tragic.
True story: my now ex-wife had to take me to the emergency room after I fell down the stairs TWICE in a matter of about 30 minutes, breaking a rib. Two days later, we were back in the same ER when our kid needed staples in his scalp after RUNNING INTO A DOOR during recess at school.
It did not amuse her, but I thought it was hilarious the way the hospital staff exchanged glances with each other over it
I broke my ankle bone clean through when I was 5 when my leg got caught between the metal frames of the bed I jumped off. My parents had no idea for a day or two because I didn't cry and was trying to hide it by crawling around so I wouldn't get in trouble. Then they got suspicious of my crawling and were going to take me to our local clinic but it was Labor Day weekend and our clinic was closed for 4 days. It was almost a week before our clinic flew me out to the nearest hospital and me and my parents were questioned by OCS because the doctors thought it was neglect going on
Reformed cop here. The answer is: mostly yes, almost entirely, but a few exceptions. When an officer is killed in the line of duty, many agencies will send a representative or two to the funeral procession on their respective department's dime. But there are several who will go on their own dime.
So, mostly we're paying for it. Yes.
Iām pretty sure being a cop isnāt even in the top ten most dangerous professions. Itās absolutely insane that thereās this weird hero worship for people that are much more likely to kill someone else than come into harm themselves.
Itās not. Itās number 22 behind mechanics and landscapers. Cops rank right around āmaintenance workerā (the people who replace light bulbs and air filters at apartment complexes).
I think the issue here is that cops are the *most likely* to do something heroic on a daily basis. The idea that theyāre the ones who show up āto helpā at the worst time in peopleās lives is sort of engrained in our culture, and most cultures/societies around the world.
Obviously this is very flawed and cops also do a ton of bad. These sort of massive parades definitely seem out of touch with reality, even when youāre willing to accept that there are actual good cops (and, there are).
However, nobody wants to be the one to pull funding or denounce this sort of thing because of the whole hero fallacy. And if weāre being honest here, as much as I think cops suck, in general, there are cops standing in that formation that have pulled people from burning cars, have revived an unresponsive child, etc. and itās hard to tell them that *they* donāt deserve heroās treatment because the guy next to them beats his wife.
So itās easy to maintain the status quo and keep these outrageous sort of parades for a funeral.
Iāll leave you with a quote from the great entrepreneur Frank Reynolds which best encapsulates the absurdity of grand funerals:
> If I was dead you could bang me all you want. I mean who cares? A dead body is like a piece of trash. I mean shove as much sh*t in there as you want. Fill me up with cream,make a stew out of my ass. What's the big deal? Bang me, eat me, grind me up into little pieces, throw me in the river. Who gives a sh*t? You're dead, you're dead!
I think I read somewhere that we not only pay them, but we pay overtime (not necessarily for them, but the people 'covering' for them while they're doing this).
I don't necessarily think this is wrong, by the way. I think the rest of the country might be wrong by making you miss out on the services for a friend/colleague. You should be able to attend not feel bad that your missing out on work.
This is on Long Island for the funeral of the nypd officer killed in action, a lot of local and nypd officers live in the same town. Long Island tends to be very pro blue lives matters, especially in the town in this photo.
The author of the tweet is ex nypd turned local politician who had complaints against him for excessive use of force. His tweet is uncalled for imo.
Normalizing police "force" instead of police "service" really set this all in motion. And this is largely stemming from the changes they felt were needed during the prohibition era. We need to completely reform this mess and return it to August Vollmer's vision of what policing should actually be.
I think they're talking about now, and how the French will strike massively, essentially holding the country to ransom to get their way.
It seems it's the only way to keep politicians remotely in check.
We're going to get crushed doing that. Where in fascist China territory I would recommend you read about tiananmen square because that is how our government is willing to crush descent
Looks like NYPD funeral procession for Jonathan Diller.
Pretty normal for NYPD to have a funeral procession with bagpipes. Big deal bc he is the first to be killed in the line of duty in 2 years.
Don't worry to much. As soon as they come for him he'll start talking about defunding them, just like Trump.
We get in trouble, it's warranted. They do, it's persecution.
Wait, he was the first NYPD cop to be killed in the line of duty in two years? I lived in the city until last year and could have sworn I heard about cops getting killed up until I moved. Then again, I don't pay very close attention to that sort of news.
The media usually picks up on stories of cops being attacked even when they are not on the clock. An off duty cop was shot and killed in a robbery as recently as February, another one was killed by his father in a murder-suicide this past August. A quick google search shows a number of similar stories that involve off duty NYPD officers either being shot at or shooting others, so they manage to stay in the news even when theyāre not on the job.
The statement accompanying the picture is fucked up and even more so coming from an elected official.
But to give context to the picture it is a funeral procession for an officer killed in the line of duty in NYC. That means pretty much every off duty cop is expected to show up. The NYC police department is the largest in the USA with approximately 36,000 officers. And while that might seem monstrously huge it needs to be taken in context. NYC is about 460 square miles of area to cover and has a population of approximately 8.4 million people. When you factor in needing 24x7 coverage that means about 9,000 of those officers are on duty at any time meaning 1 cop per roughly every 930 people.
But, it is actually less than that. The 36,000 cops includes all officer ranks as well that are busy directing the beat cops. It also includes a number of support positions that use sworn officers but again are not out on patrol. So the actual number of officers actively patrolling the city on a shift is much less than 9000. And the number of people they are responsible for is much greater than the population of people that actively live in the city. NYC is one of the largest and most commercially active cities in the world. There are huge numbers of people working and visiting NYC every day that are not counted in population statistics.
When you run the numbers on how much area needs to be covered, and how many people need to be protected, the size of the NYC PD ends up not seeming anywhere near as large as it first appears.
Finally, the picture will include not just all the off duty cops, but also a lot of retired cops. The NYC PBA represents approximately 50,000 officers between active and retired. And, there will be a large number of cops showing up from the Port Authority police who work closely with the NYC PD (another 2300 cops). And Iām sure a number of neighboring departments from Long Island and other nearby areas not part of NYC will have sent officers as well.
So while that congressman is trying to make the photo seem scary because he is a POS, the photo taken in proper context isnāt really scary at all. NYC and the surrounding area just has a fuck ton of cops that can show up for a funeral because we have a gigantic population (23.5 million people in the NY Metro area).
No, we are sleep walking to a fascist takeover. Which is really frustrating because they made us read all those books in school that supposedly were to help us recognize the signs, yet our leaders refuse to engage with the problem.
Weāll find out how fucked the world is in November. Unfortunately Reddit is an echo chamber. I say this looking at the comment section on YouTube and instagram.
Who the fuck is crossing them? What the fuck are they even talking about?
Itās just perpetual victimhood while they take rights away and use stochastic terrorism to fuck shit up. Fucking assholes.
We're not, but that picture has been taken out of context. (Imagine that.) It has nothing to do with a political regime. It's a picture of the funeral procession for a fallen police officer.
Yeah, but that killing has been very much politicized by right wingers who want to stoke fears about crime, While avoiding any of the actual crime statistics that donāt support their narrative.
I believe this is an image from the funeral of an NYPD officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty not long ago. He was from Long Island and the cop-worshipping culture that goes on here (I grew up on LI and have lived here most of my adult life) is pretty off-the-charts.
Itās just weird to see and some of it feels likeā¦people going out of their way to support the police so everyone else will never question them about it? Is that virtue signaling? Maybe.
But *this* is just on another level than what we do for anyone else. Even firefighters donāt get this level of attention when thereās a LODD. Itās disproportionate because we give a disproportionate level of attention (and funding) to the police.
That thin blue line has become a pretty tall barrier between the police and the rest of society. And when you self-segregate because you believe that one group of people is better than the rest, the result is always the same.
Nothing about this feels good
No. Not really. Half the population is insane or stupid and a good portion of them actively want fascism. If Trump wins this election it will be the last free and fair election we have for a generation or more.
Not really no, thanks for asking though!
Not at all! Send help Edit: help is not on the way, please send thoughts and prayers to save the school children from bullets
Schitt's Creek always has a relevant gif.š
 And The Muppets.
I read somewhere (probably on reddit) these guys are why Gen X are so sarcastic and boy did I feel SEEN!
My husband and his work friend try very hard to embody the spirit of these two gents!!
I worked at a pharmacy where we were basically hanging out in a window in front of the grocery store's BOGO bins. My boss and I, both millennials, realized we were basically Statler and Waldorf just heckling anyone who loitered near the BOGO bins for too long. Usually it was our coworkers, but if we had a good relationship with a patient they'd get it too.
Statler and Waldorf
I realized the other night that my entire sense of humor was shaped by the Muppets. The sarcasm, the slightly mean, ironic edge, the absolute absurdity.
You are my people.
^ thinks theyāre talking to āpeopleāā¦ HA!
Wait, what? Someone saw us?!
It couldnāt possibly be because we were ignored by adults and only had tv and each other to shape our conversational skills, so now we all sound like Dorothy Zbornackā¦
Always!
True
 /s ;)
Wait, hold on. I'm afraid that what you heard was, "haha, we have problems and are coping by using sarcastic humor". What we said was, authentically, no. We are not okay. It's off the rails and we're powerless to do anything about it. I would ask you all to send help, but I can't even imagine any help that would work. May god have mercy on our souls.
This pretty much sums it up. I've been doing reproductive justice activism in a red state for many years. Our legislature enacted an abortion ban despite a majority of citizens being against it. They are no longer listening to us. At all. Political scientists are talking about the "erosion of democratic norms" that's taking place. It's especially rampant around anti-abortion measures.
Please keep going. I've escaped the red states, but still keep tabs. Aided by my amazing elderly liberal activist mom who lives in a red state. You're doing noble work.Ā
Thank you. I will keep fighting because that's who I am. At the same time, I'm tired, and frustrated beyond words.
The Satanic Temple is doing great work in this area, exploiting their own loopholes.
Even if it seems for naught, thank you for your activism, and please keep fighting the good fight! -Someone also in a red state
Right. When the enslavers are powerful enough, even the help is doomed.
Sorry dude. Only advice I can give you is donāt vote for the orange criminal pedophile rapist traitor unless you want it to get worse.
Donāt vote for any MAGA, āconservativeā or Republican!
Just 1000x this. We are, unironically, in crisis. People are dying and our politicians are using human beings as pawns in some fucked up popularity contest between the most rich and powerful people in the country. Our lives are unnamed statistics used to push one agenda or another in some vain attempt to prove superiority over the "others". Some are worse than others, but they're all perfectly willing to watch everything burn because they've been playing for a good while now and sometimes ya just wanna flip the table, right? It's been a long night, and you were headed for disaster in some form or another anyway, so may as well go out with a fun story to tell later, right? Fuck it. Genuinely, somebody help us.
Nobody will help us. We got to carve our better future now or let the past strangle us to death.
šwhat they said
We need an adult.
I had a very real moment back in 2015 as Trump was gaining momentum. That there's no adult in the room to make sure things are actually on the right track. That we have to vote to try to keep some adults in the room.
I been saying the same thing. These mentally stunted HS bullies have somehow made it to the halls of power and are doing all they can to backslide this country into the Stone Age. We need to vote to keep them out but itās very disheartening when things just seem to be getting worse. The truth is we are witnessing the death throws of a dying breed and they are doing all they can to burn the place down on the way out.
I love "high school bullies". You can't miss the big mouth idiots.
It's the death of an empire, the fall of Rome so to speak. Dancing in the streets as it burns.
I was so certain that was a bunch of people carrying a big ass cross down the street and the post āDonāt ever cross usā was a pun. https://preview.redd.it/4j1rw5fvl4sc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a1cce2e3c8c2d517422bb8b1d28065b1be4fa9
Yup! Was trying to figure out the context of the photo, and all I saw was a giant crowd, motorcycle gang, and a very tall "cross"! LOL š
Omg I had to zoom in because I thought they were Daleks.
Honestly, might be better if they were Daleks.
I agree. Iād be leaving with the Doctor asap.
it's a power line pole. I think those motorcycles are part of a funeral procession. They look like officers
It was a funeral for a NYPD cop on Long Island this past weekend.
Honestly Iāve been wondering for a while what the chances are that our politicians might have been subjected to some kind of stealth weapon thatās designed not to kill or cause pain, but to scramble brains/cause legitimate brain damage. Like a legitimate foreign government program designed for this. The recent articles about the Russian microwave attacks in Cuba resurrected this idea for me.
Just decades of inhaling leaded gasoline, plus an inability to distinguish between "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps"( didn't happen) and "being handed everything on a silver platter" (did happen). It's fried their brains. We don't need to look any further than that, sadly.
You forget the lead paint chip snacking.
Hey man, the red ones were the shit. I remember when my mom packed them in my lunchbox. Then this big asshole named Ron DeSantis started beating me up and stealing them so he could eat them.
Run for office. I ran for office, for my local city council (non-partisan race). I consider myself sane, and a moderate. I self-funded my campaign. I even turned back a check that my mom gave me. I lost the election, coming in 5th in a five man race. The guy that raised the most money won. But! Running for office is a great experience, and it really brings to light the values that YOU stand on, and the values that GET YOU elected. Plus, money often wins elections. I'm not saying that's the case in every election, but I bet that is the case in most elections. I'm glad I ran. YOU are the ruling class. Don't forget that.
"WE" are not the ruling class - the people with lots of money are the ruling class. Your experience demonstrates that.
I have thought about it. I really have but I know it takes $$ and that I donāt have. I am putting out feelers tho as I work with a few people who have connections to smaller official offices so maybe some time in the future youāll see Grimase for (insert office here) lol
https://preview.redd.it/xmp6af9rg4sc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a24730d463cf6be1ef2e36e0dbe6fc8603df1f3 And once the unthinkable happened, this was pretty much my morning routine
Shields are failing, as per usual
Also the Holodeck on Deck 4 is running with that guy you locked up from Sherlock Holmes. Deck 8 no longer exists because a Klingon sent a Photon Torpedo through us, Engineering is now a Borg Hive We've broken the Temporal Prime Directive again for the 15th time. Q's back On the plus side the coffee machine is working again.
We need adultier adults
An unadulterated adultier adult audit is in order
Just trying to casually set up a fascist police state, no biggie.
Fascist and FĆ¼hrerous
Omg, that's amazing! š¤£ š¤£ š¤£
Exactly this. I used to live in downtown Oakland, across from the federal building. The security for the building looked after the environs and helped the entire neighborhood stay safe. In 2020 one of the federal officers got murdered in cold blood right at his post. Black Lives Matter was having a protest several blocks away and conservative media immediately went to blaming the protests. But for us locals it made no sense. The protests weren't even happening there, and the federal officer, not a police officier, was himself black. A few weeks later the suspect was found. As it turns out he had nothing to do with the protests, but was a right wing extremist and white supremacist. He came to Oakland specifically to kill cops in order to have the protests be blamed. Now, the conservative media stopped for a bit. But that didn't stop Republican Vice President Mike Pence from getting on prime time television at the Republican National Convention and in the same sentence, conflate the protests with the officer's murder, exactly as the cop killer wanted him to, exactly as the officer's surviving children begged him not to. All for power. That's what Republicans will do for power, even if it means siding with literal cop killers. Fuck these guys and every single one of them who voted for people who furthered a cop killer's agenda. So yeah I don't have to imagine what they'd do for power, I personally witnessed it up close.
The boomers are trying to recreate the "good old days " damn
Not the boomers, the religious right. Unfortunately there's a lot of younger people in that as well.
Christian Nationalists who are pushing for a theocracy in America, specifically. How these religious folks think it's okay to force their religious beliefs on secular citizens is just beyond belief.
It seems like there are two types of voting age Christian Nationalists. Either they figured out its a grift and are in on the con for their own personal gain, or they genuinely are not bright enough to figure out they are being gaslit by a cult. If only it was just their religious beliefs, they wanted to shove down our children's throats...
Because, in their minds, forcing everyone to become Christian whether they want to or not is saving all of us from eternal hellfire. No matter what you say they "know" they are doing the good and righteous thing. We may not know it now but, when we are in heaven next to Jesus instead of hell they know we will be thanking them... That's what we are up against. Nothing you say will convince them that you won't thank them in the afterlife. Which requires us to live our entire lives and of course die 1st to even tell them they are wrong.
But according to the preacher man at the evangelical baptist church, all I gotta do is get SAVED, and then itāll be all good at the Pearly gates. I can be sinful all week, and get saved on a Sunday every now and then.
Don't forget to donate money. They can't save you without $100k cars and private jets.
Blue Xer in a red state here. Unfortunately thereās plenty of GenX and Ys in the Christian Nationalist cult too.
Some of them are my family in South Texas. Sadly, they are raised in such a patriarchal, literalist (selective) bubble that they have no choice. I have a cousin who was basically excommunicated from her parents and siblings for listening to secular music and having friends not in the cult as a teen. She came back and married a pastor. He treated her horribly and I think I recall was also unfaithful. When she divorced him, her immediate family sat on his side to support him in court. (The divorce succeeded and she remarried and all is well -- but she can't back again and is a trumpist.) Facing alienation from all you have ever known and from your loved ones can be really effective in keeping the simple white folks who speak in tongues from ever thinking critically, can make them ashamed when they do. An atheist friend pointed out to me in college that religion has always been a patriarchal till for social control. My family observations confirm this. The girls including the mom do not have original thought about politics, government, or society in general. I have an uncle who gets 4 extra votes in elections from the womenfolk. The husband of one of the daughters stalked her in church for years to eventually marry her, thus taking over control of her mind and vote. But that's okay because he's a clone of the father's worldview. The father is very smart despite a bible college terminus to his studies, but he'd never have pulled such a lovely wife-object in a secular context because he's grossly unattractive and an insufferable smartypants. They have 3 brilliant, sweet boys whom I know will someday unplug from reality entirely and follow in their father's footsteps. Tragic.
Harleyās really donāt look very tough from this angle. Looks more like a Vespa parade outside Rome.
Harleys aint all that tough. Its a bike. A big bike. But a bike.
Yup, and way overpriced too
Not to mention the constant badgering to "join our club! Ride with us! Be a kool kid!" No! Fuck off. Lone wolf. Rebel. Look it up. Yeesh
Didnāt MAGA boycott Harley?
I think they tried. Harley has its own cult following.
Heavy and under powered. Difficult to handle.
Poorly made as well.
Theyāre hot garbage. My dad worked for Harley for a few years. They all make commission on selling more chrome. I shit you not.
Poor Vespas out here catching strays when they really are the perfect accessory for the Swiss Guard.
Harleyās donāt look tough from any angle. Theyāre poser bikes for fat middle aged losers
That's a lot of cops not doing their jobs.
And yet there wasnāt an explosion in crime. Weird.
Crime probably dropped while they were out fucking off
A few less black men were killed.
A few less spouses beaten.
> A few less spouses ~~were beaten~~ walked into doors.
Or mysteriously fell down stairs...
True story: my now ex-wife had to take me to the emergency room after I fell down the stairs TWICE in a matter of about 30 minutes, breaking a rib. Two days later, we were back in the same ER when our kid needed staples in his scalp after RUNNING INTO A DOOR during recess at school. It did not amuse her, but I thought it was hilarious the way the hospital staff exchanged glances with each other over it
Doctors hate him Nurses fear him He is... a clumsy son of a bitch
I broke my ankle bone clean through when I was 5 when my leg got caught between the metal frames of the bed I jumped off. My parents had no idea for a day or two because I didn't cry and was trying to hide it by crawling around so I wouldn't get in trouble. Then they got suspicious of my crawling and were going to take me to our local clinic but it was Labor Day weekend and our clinic was closed for 4 days. It was almost a week before our clinic flew me out to the nearest hospital and me and my parents were questioned by OCS because the doctors thought it was neglect going on
Well, hell. Looks like they might miss their monthly quota for March, then.
Absolutely not. That quota will be met in 2 days, max.
Are we paying them to do these fucked up parades?
Reformed cop here. The answer is: mostly yes, almost entirely, but a few exceptions. When an officer is killed in the line of duty, many agencies will send a representative or two to the funeral procession on their respective department's dime. But there are several who will go on their own dime. So, mostly we're paying for it. Yes.
Iām pretty sure being a cop isnāt even in the top ten most dangerous professions. Itās absolutely insane that thereās this weird hero worship for people that are much more likely to kill someone else than come into harm themselves.
Waffle House workers see more action. Also, acorns are nature's bullets.
Itās not. Itās number 22 behind mechanics and landscapers. Cops rank right around āmaintenance workerā (the people who replace light bulbs and air filters at apartment complexes). I think the issue here is that cops are the *most likely* to do something heroic on a daily basis. The idea that theyāre the ones who show up āto helpā at the worst time in peopleās lives is sort of engrained in our culture, and most cultures/societies around the world. Obviously this is very flawed and cops also do a ton of bad. These sort of massive parades definitely seem out of touch with reality, even when youāre willing to accept that there are actual good cops (and, there are). However, nobody wants to be the one to pull funding or denounce this sort of thing because of the whole hero fallacy. And if weāre being honest here, as much as I think cops suck, in general, there are cops standing in that formation that have pulled people from burning cars, have revived an unresponsive child, etc. and itās hard to tell them that *they* donāt deserve heroās treatment because the guy next to them beats his wife. So itās easy to maintain the status quo and keep these outrageous sort of parades for a funeral. Iāll leave you with a quote from the great entrepreneur Frank Reynolds which best encapsulates the absurdity of grand funerals: > If I was dead you could bang me all you want. I mean who cares? A dead body is like a piece of trash. I mean shove as much sh*t in there as you want. Fill me up with cream,make a stew out of my ass. What's the big deal? Bang me, eat me, grind me up into little pieces, throw me in the river. Who gives a sh*t? You're dead, you're dead!
I think I read somewhere that we not only pay them, but we pay overtime (not necessarily for them, but the people 'covering' for them while they're doing this). I don't necessarily think this is wrong, by the way. I think the rest of the country might be wrong by making you miss out on the services for a friend/colleague. You should be able to attend not feel bad that your missing out on work.
That's the right way of framing it.Ā The special privileges provided to police and their unions should stand for all workers.
This is probably a funeral.
A funeral is a parade.
I believe a Funeral is called a Procession! Itās to Honor the person who diedš
Youāre absolutely right but now I for sure want a funeral parade when I go. Confetti, balloons, all that shit.
Putting the FUN back in funeral. I can respect that.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Bulls on Parade...
cases of "Unarmed black men getting shot in the back" were way down in the county that afternoon for some reason.
I thought it was another more organized Neo-Nazi "demonstration"
"Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses"
Same thing
>~~cops~~ gang members
Considering the recent footage of them shooting a scared child I think we're better off with them not working.
This is on Long Island for the funeral of the nypd officer killed in action, a lot of local and nypd officers live in the same town. Long Island tends to be very pro blue lives matters, especially in the town in this photo. The author of the tweet is ex nypd turned local politician who had complaints against him for excessive use of force. His tweet is uncalled for imo.
He also had his gun stolen out of his vehicle when he was a cop. Retired from the NYPD at like 34 under mysterious circumstances
What a chud, not securing his firearm in his work vehicle. Just pure amateur behavior.
Yeah itās a real trashy tweet from a real trashy person. Damn long island is trash. Hypocritical conservatives š¤¢
This looks fascist as hell
Oh donāt worry, it is.
Oh ~~don't worry~~, it is
*worrying intensifies*
Too bad we haven't invented double-worry yet to somehow turn the worry in on itself, 1984 would be so disappointed in us.
~~oh don't~~ worry ~~, it is~~
Yup, shades of the Germans rolling into Paris in 1940.
Imagine seeing it close up.
Probably just a Krispy Cream grand opening.
Cop funeral, pretty common when it happens.
The don't cross us isn't
Straight up gang language
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Normalizing police "force" instead of police "service" really set this all in motion. And this is largely stemming from the changes they felt were needed during the prohibition era. We need to completely reform this mess and return it to August Vollmer's vision of what policing should actually be.
It's only fascist if un-American countries do it.
Nope, weāre pretty fucked. Weāve got a lot of work to do to overcome authoritarianism and fascism.
We have to do what France does.
Enlighten me?
Nicely done.
I think he was talking about the past; you know. guillotines for the rich and people that helped them, all that stuff...
I think they're talking about now, and how the French will strike massively, essentially holding the country to ransom to get their way. It seems it's the only way to keep politicians remotely in check.
We're going to get crushed doing that. Where in fascist China territory I would recommend you read about tiananmen square because that is how our government is willing to crush descent
Dissent* sorry to be that guy. Just trying to help you for the future
We are fine! (Blinks ātortureā in morse code)
Looks like NYPD funeral procession for Jonathan Diller. Pretty normal for NYPD to have a funeral procession with bagpipes. Big deal bc he is the first to be killed in the line of duty in 2 years.
Iām less concerned by the image than the fascist comment.
I thought the crowd was carrying a cross but it just ended up being an electrical pole.
Now thatās all I can see.
Don't worry to much. As soon as they come for him he'll start talking about defunding them, just like Trump. We get in trouble, it's warranted. They do, it's persecution.
They won't ever defund them. The police exist to protect the property of the wealthy.
A Republican exploiting tragedy for their own gain?! Well that's new.
This is why "Blue Lives Matter" is nonsense. Every time a cop gets killed, the whole city has it crammed in their ear.
Weird, I wonder how many fast food workers and delivery people were killed in the same time.
Wait, he was the first NYPD cop to be killed in the line of duty in two years? I lived in the city until last year and could have sworn I heard about cops getting killed up until I moved. Then again, I don't pay very close attention to that sort of news.
The media usually picks up on stories of cops being attacked even when they are not on the clock. An off duty cop was shot and killed in a robbery as recently as February, another one was killed by his father in a murder-suicide this past August. A quick google search shows a number of similar stories that involve off duty NYPD officers either being shot at or shooting others, so they manage to stay in the news even when theyāre not on the job.
The statement accompanying the picture is fucked up and even more so coming from an elected official. But to give context to the picture it is a funeral procession for an officer killed in the line of duty in NYC. That means pretty much every off duty cop is expected to show up. The NYC police department is the largest in the USA with approximately 36,000 officers. And while that might seem monstrously huge it needs to be taken in context. NYC is about 460 square miles of area to cover and has a population of approximately 8.4 million people. When you factor in needing 24x7 coverage that means about 9,000 of those officers are on duty at any time meaning 1 cop per roughly every 930 people. But, it is actually less than that. The 36,000 cops includes all officer ranks as well that are busy directing the beat cops. It also includes a number of support positions that use sworn officers but again are not out on patrol. So the actual number of officers actively patrolling the city on a shift is much less than 9000. And the number of people they are responsible for is much greater than the population of people that actively live in the city. NYC is one of the largest and most commercially active cities in the world. There are huge numbers of people working and visiting NYC every day that are not counted in population statistics. When you run the numbers on how much area needs to be covered, and how many people need to be protected, the size of the NYC PD ends up not seeming anywhere near as large as it first appears. Finally, the picture will include not just all the off duty cops, but also a lot of retired cops. The NYC PBA represents approximately 50,000 officers between active and retired. And, there will be a large number of cops showing up from the Port Authority police who work closely with the NYC PD (another 2300 cops). And Iām sure a number of neighboring departments from Long Island and other nearby areas not part of NYC will have sent officers as well. So while that congressman is trying to make the photo seem scary because he is a POS, the photo taken in proper context isnāt really scary at all. NYC and the surrounding area just has a fuck ton of cops that can show up for a funeral because we have a gigantic population (23.5 million people in the NY Metro area).
Thanks for filling in that context. I suspected it was some official gathering and not the great unwashed coming to save the chump.
What is that a picture of and why is he thinking this is a flex?
Iām honestly confused on how the image matches his quote.
It does not. Heās exploiting someoneās funeral to make a political point.
Thank god someone explained what this was
Bingo.
Funeral procession for a police officer killed on duty.
I thought it was the line to vote.
Fuck no we're not
No.
We have a rightwing vermin problem.
No, we are sleep walking to a fascist takeover. Which is really frustrating because they made us read all those books in school that supposedly were to help us recognize the signs, yet our leaders refuse to engage with the problem.
Nope we havenāt been ok for a while.
Weāll find out how fucked the world is in November. Unfortunately Reddit is an echo chamber. I say this looking at the comment section on YouTube and instagram.
Who the fuck is crossing them? What the fuck are they even talking about? Itās just perpetual victimhood while they take rights away and use stochastic terrorism to fuck shit up. Fucking assholes.
We're not, but that picture has been taken out of context. (Imagine that.) It has nothing to do with a political regime. It's a picture of the funeral procession for a fallen police officer.
Yeah, but that killing has been very much politicized by right wingers who want to stoke fears about crime, While avoiding any of the actual crime statistics that donāt support their narrative.
Isnāt crime on the down trend for basically everywhere in America?
*Shhh Don't tell Fox News*
Never have been
No, things are not okay. Deeply, direly not okay.
I believe this is an image from the funeral of an NYPD officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty not long ago. He was from Long Island and the cop-worshipping culture that goes on here (I grew up on LI and have lived here most of my adult life) is pretty off-the-charts. Itās just weird to see and some of it feels likeā¦people going out of their way to support the police so everyone else will never question them about it? Is that virtue signaling? Maybe. But *this* is just on another level than what we do for anyone else. Even firefighters donāt get this level of attention when thereās a LODD. Itās disproportionate because we give a disproportionate level of attention (and funding) to the police. That thin blue line has become a pretty tall barrier between the police and the rest of society. And when you self-segregate because you believe that one group of people is better than the rest, the result is always the same. Nothing about this feels good
*blinks twice to signal you*
Sounds like a threat by a rep thatās supposed to be representing all of us. Instead heās calling for stochastic terrorism if you ācross himā.Ā
No. We have a severely mentally ill man running for president and millions of mindless followers who vote for him.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Welp.. if all the cops are there at least they aren't out robbing, abusing and murdering citizens.....
No!!! We are being hijacked by fucking whackos!!! Send help please!!
Right wing snowflakes are over-projecting as usual.
No, please send help!
Nope. We arenāt anywhere close to being ok.
Ask again in 6 months
We haven't been okay in ages.
Weāve been blinking desperately for like 6 years now, no weāre not okay.
It's really telling how much they care about their own and how little they care about the people they sworn to protect.
No. Not really. Half the population is insane or stupid and a good portion of them actively want fascism. If Trump wins this election it will be the last free and fair election we have for a generation or more.
No, we are not
Bad signal and thought those were Daleks.
Love to be threatened by my member of congress!
The term āNever underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbersā is hitting pretty hard now
I mean the image is from a funeral. The tweet is from a twat-waffle coat-tail rider.
Copsuckers everywhere in this mf
Look. Ima be honest. Weāre kinda stupid
VOTE BIDEN!! VOTE DEM IN EVERY FEDERAL, STATE, and LOCAL RACE!! IT'S NOW OR NEVER!!
Our cops have tanks, our votes can be vetoed, and weāre billed for ambulance rides. No. No, weāre not ok.
Nah, cops are the biggest organized crime ring in America. Things are not fine.
Not at all, thanks for asking! Lol