The Best Depression

I like economics and other political topics. I will talk your ear off about the Financial Crisis of 2008. Donald Trump is an idiot, and I’d give anything to punch Mitch McConnell in the face.

[geyfrog]

Used to be Italian but now I’m just ian because she took it al in the divorce

[sonicguillotine-deactivated2025]

Charlie Kirk (TPUSA) and Nick Fuentes (Groypers) represented rival factions that emerged in the wake of the bad press Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Hayes created for the Alternative Right.

Until then, the media was largely taking their framing as gospel - that they were merely patriots supporting their President but evil communists who hate America and freedom are unjustly attacking them. This was not a narrative most mainstream news pushed back on. The stabbings and brawls that occurred as a result of far right rallies tended to be blamed upon antifascist protesters. Until Charlottesville, when media began becoming more critical of these groups and their intentions.

Kirk and Fuentes (and by extension, Kirk's killer who was a Groyper) were on opposite sides of the "optics" debate. After Charlottesville many on the far right argued that leading with swastikas and antisemitic chants damaged their public image and that they needed to "hide their power levels" by obfuscating their pro nazi beliefs. Others, including the Groypers, disagreed and believed the movement should be more openly racist and genocidal, not hiding behind dogwhistles and insinuations.

Kirk was a "mainstreamer," someone who sought to give a professional and "moderate" face to the far right. Fuentes is openly a holocaust denier who calls for the genocide of multiple ethnic groups.

This assassination of Charlie Kirk was a gang war between rival factions of white nationalists, with the more radical faction publicly purging a leader of the moderates.

[guerrillatech]

[ashbless]

Wow there's some fucking bullshit going on in the replies here. Moderate your fucking spaces on the internet, kick racists and other bad actors to the kerb or you risk losing everyone else. This guy has the right of it (scroll up to top).

[ittybittytatertot]

Quit thinking you need to be fair to unfair voices

[big-tiddy-goth-ghoulfriend]

For anyone who can’t/won’t read that twitter thread, it’s by Michael B. Tager (@IamRageSparkle) and it says: 

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."

And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them." And i was like, ohok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people." And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.

[rui-cifer]

Another thing to note here is, Tager did not recognize the Nazi at first, but the bartender did, and took appropriate action, even though Tager thought it was puzzling at first. Dogwhistles (though Iron Crosses are hardly dogwhistles. More like, dog megaphones) and outright bigotry might not be clear to you, but it might be to others, and taking the steps to be proactive about it should not be by default seen as disproportionate if you don’t have all the context that others who are more keyed into spotting bigotry and dogwhistles have.

[guerrillatech]

[naturalscienceforweirdos]

remember when greta thunberg came on the scene and the media made a folk hero slash joke out of her and she was all “you’re going to hail me for this and then take no action at all on climate change and that makes me so fucking mad” and then exactly that happened? cause I think about it a lot and I too am mad

[clodiuspulcher]

This meme from AgenderVoid on Twitter.... is REALLY making me think 🤔

[bat-demon]

with EVERYONES help we can make that last bit a reality!

[monsterbutch]

likes charge, reblogs cast!

[russkiizek-deactivated20210424]

Abandoned Soviet buildings aren’t near as depressing as fast food restaurants around every corner in America

[russkiizek-deactivated20210424]

this image is depression

[headspace-hotel]

Most of all how placeless and contextless it is. If you live in America, you have been here. No matter where in America you live. No matter how far you run, this place will always find you, and you will always end up there.

[636174657270696c6c6172]

stole a crumb from a ant that would have been great to his colony and it means nothing to me i throw it away

[economicomics]

-Jeff Bezos’ diary entry #1302

[sarahconnorjr]

[politijohn]

[politijohn]

Yes, this is really a thing...

[solitarelee]

Yep, because baby formula is one of the most shoplifted things in America. Which should ALSO radicalize you.

[girtheemoninja]

Or... We stop shoplifting? 🤔 Are we demonizing acts to stop crimes now?

[demonius-darkblade]

ill tear your head off your shoulders you dumb fuck

[jana-the-clown]

I'm all for radicalization like the government and society are fucked. But they put baby formula in locked cases because it is used to make meth. The store does this to keep an eye out if someone is buying way too much. Like waaaaay too much.

[40ouncesandamule]

No. They lock it up because hungry babies need it and there is a thriving market for stealing baby formula because people will pay good money to guarantee their babies don’t starve.

You can’t make meth out of baby formula. You can stretch some drugs by cutting it with baby formula but “Drug dealers sometimes use the powdered formula to dilute heroin and methamphetamine or to stretch the product when supplies run low. However, experts say that more often than not, formula is stolen because of its high market demand among consumers rather than drug dealers.”

This is what imperialism and capitalism and the “war on drugs” does to people’s brains. You can see that people are so desperate to feed their babies that the people who rule your lives keep baby formula under lock and key but rather than that radicalizing you and making you want to fight for a world where no baby ever goes hungry, you justify this draconian bullshit because you’ve fallen for the propaganda that baby formula is used in some nebulous relation to “drugs” and drugs are bad so whatever inhuman monstrosity that occurs must be justifiable.

[warmdrool-deactivated20210404]

late capitalism nightmare

[un-void]

[whitepeopletwitter]

[gorgonsach]

x

[justgfy]

Unions are trash. Theyll Destroy a whole company for firing a shitty worker.

[gorgonsach]

unions are the reason you aren’t paid 2.50 an hour with steel beams about to bust ya head open shut up lol

[explorerrowan]

Unions are why you have 5 day, 40 hour full-time work weeks. Unions are why they have to pay you in actual dollars instead of “company credits” that you can only spend at the company-owned stores. Unions are why there are fucking fire exits at your place of work. Unions are why it’s not okay for your supermarket ground beef to be any percentage human.

You think your company pays you out of the goodness of their hearts? Or even out of “market pressure?” The “job market” is a myth perpetuated by the capitalists. Corporations would pay you nothing if they could get away with it. And you argue “oh, but if they paid me nothing I’d just go to another one.” Wrong. Because to maximize profits, they all want to pay you nothing. Corporations exist to maximize profits while reducing risk for investors. It’s part of their entire function to find ways to cut costs as much as possible, and that includes finding ways to pay you nothing.

Unions are your defense against that. You think all a union does is strike? If you pay union dues, a lot of that is spent on lobbyists in various governments reminding your lawmakers that you have rights as a living human being that a corporation should not be able to stomp all over. Unions hire lawyers so that if you’re fired for bullshit reasons, the union can stand up for you against your boss. They’re called unions because workers are uniting to pool resources so that they can stand up to these corporate overlords with more money than God. Unions exist because you might not have the words, resources, or time to fight workplace injustices all by yourself. That’s the whole fucking point.

And if a business shuts down because a union is striking, it’s because the business was abusing people and didn’t deserve to be in business anyway. Don’t make excuses for the corporations. They already have trillions of dollars and a couple million lawyers to do that for themselves. They don’t need your help.

[mierac]

The erasure of labor history from US history curriculum has caused so much fucking damage to this country. 

[luidilovins]

walmart payed me in company credits instead of holiday pay and it was on for only one purchase and they handed out the cards for it on that day, mine never worked and some of my coworkers had the scheduled day off and didn’t even get told the card existed so any gifts or food I got that year was from Walmart and Walmart alone and it didn’t even help with my fucking bills also if you ask for the day off instead of the holiday credits they’ll say no and if you don’t show up on a scheduled holiday even if you do call out they’ll give you two absence occurrences for every one day you don’t come in and guess what they don’t have a fucking union.

[marauders4evr]

Abled Person: Hey man, can you hold this wad of $2,000 and this one penny for me while I open my wallet?

Disabled Person: YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER FOOL!

The United States Government:

(Watch how many people don’t get this.)

[marauders4evr]

#raises hand #i dont understand #please explain? 

In order for disabled people to receive any sort of financial assistant for their housing, food, bills, medical supplies, etc., they cannot ever have more than $2,000 of resources to their name. Ever.

It doesn’t matter what it’s for.

You’re saving up for a new wheelchair?

For college?

To put a downpayment on a house?

Hell man, you just happen to budget for once in your life so that you can have some extra money in case something bad happens?

Your benefits immediately get cut off if you’re a cent over $2,000.

And, even worse, you usually end up having to pay back every dollar the government gave you that month.

So say you get $400. If they find out you’re twenty dollars over the resource limit, you have to give them all $400 back and you undergo an investigation of your funds to see if you will continue getting money.

“What if I spend the money that day?”

Doesn’t matter. In fact, from what I can tell, people who do this are actually put under investigation for fraud.

And yes, this system literally kills people.

[locuas642]

Remember when “Guardians of the Galaxy” came out? one of Rocket Racoon’s creators, Bill Mantlo, suffered an accident in 1992 and has irreparable brain damage.

before the movie came out, Marvel gave him an exclusive preview screening. SOme people were upset because they felt if Marvel was really wanted to thank mantlo, they should have donated money to Mantlo’s family.

Bill Mantlo’s brother had to come out and explain: If Marvel gave them monetary aid, Bill Mantlo would lose his financial assistance.

[rootbeergoddess]

That’s so utterly depressing.

[sushinfood]

disgusting

[beeskeepony]

I have friends on welfare who won’t pick up a penny in the street because they’d risk the welfare they struggled to get for 10 years.

[raenboow]

oh look another fucked up thing in this world. let’s just add it to the list. number 63858b

[luvtonique]

My brother has been on California State SSI for autism for the last 10 years, and he absolutely has to (no joke, HAS TO) spend all 720 bucks of his SSI every month, because if he puts it in the bank he risks losing his SSI altogether.

Sometimes, at the end of the month, he has no idea what to do with his money because the whole month went by and he still has 400-ish bucks in his account, and he fucking panics because he doesn’t want to get anywhere near 2,000.

And here’s the funnest part of the story!

One day he did a huge commission on Second Life and wound up earning 1500 bucks off of it, and he told the guy to donate it 500 bucks at a time over 3 months. The guy didn’t want to, and just donated all 1500, which put my brother at 2,036 bucks.

The state IMMEDIATELY (I’m talking less than an hour) called him up to tell him over the phone that they were canceling his SSI, because they noticed he had gone over the 2,000 buck threshold. He had to tell them that someone had made a charitable donation to him and that this was not a common occurrence in any way shape or form, and upon not believing him, my mother had to call to talk to them as his legal caretaker and say basically the same thing until they called off the cancellation of his SSI money.

He also had to cancel his renter’s assistance because it put him to 1,062 a month, so if he went 30 days without spending any money they’d cancel his SSI altogether. Like, none of us in the family have any fucking clue why that regulation is in place and it’s the stupidest shit in human history.

Please, legal side of Tumblr, tell me what positive reasoning this law has?

[sodomymcscurvylegs]

Happy 4th of July everyone! This is what the “nation of opportunity” looks like.

[xfirecorex]

There’s something called an ABLE account that can help. If you are on SSI and were diagnosed as disabled before the age of 26 you can apply for an ABLE account that will allow you to save up to $99,000. More people need to know about this!

[strawbebbynya]

thank you so much for this information. i’m applying for an abled account right now

[viostormcaller]

THERES A WHAT

OH GOD BLESS THE SHIT OUTTA YOU YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW FREAKED OUT OVER THIS I WAS

[septic-dr-schneep]

I’ve been looking into SSI; I had no idea about this!

[perksofbeingdisabled]

Read till the end for the important info

[whatevercomestomymind]

Reblog to literally save a disabled person’s life

[simplyclockwork]

friendly reminder that disability support is half-ass, and that the system considers disabled people to be burdens. The entire system is designed to force people to ‘get better’. Which, for many people experiencing disability, isn’t a possibility (nevermind the whole fact that being disabled doesn’t make you bad or wrong or in need of ‘getting better’, because it’s society and infrastructure and capitalism that create disability by neglecting to be accessible to all in the first place!!!!). colonial, capitalist society says if you can’t participate in full-time, ‘able-bodied’ capitalism, then you’re not valid! 

well fuck that! here’s yet another reminder that change is needed and the system is fucking broken!!

[studdedrose]

[thesociologicalcinema]

Anyways, Breonna Taylor

Breonna Taylor - On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor lay sleeping with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker.

Outside police silently gathered, preparing to raid what they believed to be a residence linked to two drug dealers.

One of these drug dealers was thought to be receiving mail at Taylor’s apartment, resulting in a judge signing a search warrant with a “no knock” provision.

The warrant claimed that a US Postal Inspector confirmed that the dealer had been receiving packages at the apartment. Postal Inspector Tony Gooden has said that his office had told police there were no packages of interest being received there.

Taylor and Walker were awoken by a loud bang at the door.

Taylor yelled “Who is it?” multiple times to no response before Walker armed himself with a legally owned firearm.

Walker fired 1 shot before the officers returned with over 20 rounds. Taylor was shot at least 8 times. No drugs were found in the apartment.

Breonna Taylor worked as an EMT. She aspired to be a nurse and had no criminal past. She was working during the coronavirus crisis.

On May 29, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer indefinitely suspended the use of “no knock” warrants. The shooting is currently under investigation.

Artist: @thefakepan

[hammerheadandsickle]

the media refuses to cover this because they don’t want laborers to understand the power a union holds.

longshoremen have shut down 29 ports in solidarity with BLM, in honor of George Floyd and Juneteenth

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4ay3xm/one-of-americas-most-powerful-unions-will-shut-down-29-ports-on-juneteenth

One of America’s Most Powerful Unions Will Shut Down 29 Ports on Juneteenth

The work stoppage in memory of George Floyd will be the largest led by West Coast's most militant union in over a decade.

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/dockworkers-union-shutdown-george-floyd/

Dockworkers to Shut Down West Coast Ports in Memory of George Floyd

One of the most radical antiracist unions in the country makes a show of solidarity with all those threatened by police violence and exploit

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Port-of-Oakland-shut-down-by-dockworkers-in-15352644.php

Port of Oakland shut down by dockworkers in observation of Juneteenth

Workers at the Port of Oakland, along with 28 other West Coast ports from Seattle to San Diego, stopped work on Friday to protest police bru

we have to spread the word because the mainstream media won’t; there is power in a union!

[coyotesmokebreak]

(By the way the preview image for the last article? That is indeed ANGELA DAVIS who came out for the protest.)