this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
129 points (100.0% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15919 readers
9 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to [email protected]

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

You're probably familiar with Cracked.com, the epic listicle site that was popular a decade ago and now mainly exists to promote paid content. In their heyday, they made many of the standard "lol look at how evil North Korea is" articles, but what stood out more to me was this article, 6 Ugly Facts Of Life In Communist Cuba, which wasw ritten with input from some gusanos and reads like US state department propaganda.

Most of the article is literally anecdotes from these people, which are the standard "Castro bad" crap, but one is notably ridiculous:

One day, my sister came home and exclaimed, 'Fidel is better than Jesus!' In school they had asked the kindergartners to close their eyes and pray to Jesus for ice cream. When they opened their eyes -- nothing. Then they closed their eyes again and prayed to Fidel for ice cream, and ... surprise! Ice cream cups on their desks!

matt Wow, such a plausible story! How could Fidel deceive the children like this?

The few sections that are actually sourced aren't any better:

It's hard to say how many people Castro's new regime gunned down (evil dictators being notoriously spotty record-keepers), but the butcher's bill was probably around 30,000.

This links to the 1995-ass website of some rando Italian-American writer called Piero Scaruffi, who cites The Black Book of Communism among others. A very credible source, I'm sure.

He got lucky: Thanks to Operation Pedro Pan, a joint venture between the Swiss embassy and the Catholic Church to spirit children to America, he secured permission to leave ... alone. "So I came to the U.S. without my parents and lived in a refugee camp in Florida."

No criticism of Operation Pedro Pan? At all? Alright!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 89 points 6 months ago (3 children)

You left out the best part:

"In Cuba, we were upper-middle-class," Vivian said. "My grandfather was a bank vice president; my father worked for another bank and also wrote comedy sketches. We lived with extended family in a chic apartment. My sister and I had our own room; my brother had his own; we had a maid who lived in a small room behind the kitchen. She was a Spaniard and blind in one eye. I was a little scared of her."

[–] [email protected] 72 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (2 children)

who we basically kept in a fucking closet

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

Also let's use a bit of logic and think about why the family maid who they treated like a slave may have been blind in one eye curious-sickle

Could definitely see it being the result of some abuse from the family

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

Wow, just like Harry potter :soyjack-pointing:

[–] [email protected] 62 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's always some variation of "I exploited human beings and the evil gommulists stopped me from doing that and now I'm sad" lol

lmao even

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

Is it not?

This is so ridiculous and it being from Cracked makes me feel like we're eating the Onion.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Tbf, those children would not have had ice cream without Fidel. Particularly free ice cream. Getting ice cream to happen for everybody in Cuba was a huge endeavour for Castro, as he believed every person in Cuba deserved at least that luxury.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago

I think ice cream is just the nice little treat on top of something much more important. Making it accessible means widespread electrification and refrigeration. Two things absolutely critical for a modern society.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Those kids would not have been in school without Fidel.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Cracked.com more like Crackkker.com amarite fellas

[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They also included Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" in an article about songs with dark hidden messages

"This Land Is Your Land" is, for lack of a better term, a song about communism. The opening lines are a bit of a giveaway, but only if you know the background: "This land is your land/This land is my land." OK, well, that doesn't have to be referring to the idea of public ownership of all property. Maybe "The invisible hand of the free market will dictate who is the rightful owner of this land" just didn't fit into the rhyme scheme.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Wow, I never would've figured out that Jimi Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner wasn't meant to be a straight-laced anthem! capitaldcolon Thanks for telling me about that hidden message, Cracked!

edit: 99 Luftballons had a ”hidden message”, unless of course you were one of the millions of people who spoke German, in which case it wasn't hidden at all. Must've been a good gig getting paid to write this.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

to be fair, it's incredibly clever to hide the message in the song's lyrics. nobody would think to look for it there

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

or you listen to the english version, which has lyrics about the same thing

[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 months ago (3 children)

One day, my sister came home and exclaimed, 'Fidel is better than Jesus!' In school they had asked the kindergartners to close their eyes and pray to Jesus for ice cream. When they opened their eyes -- nothing. Then they closed their eyes again and prayed to Fidel for ice cream, and ... surprise! Ice cream cups on their desks!

Can't argue with those results

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago

if jesus didn't want the kids to become communists he should have produced the ice cream

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

that's it, imma start praying to Fidel before every set at the gym

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

that part is so fucking funny

[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago (5 children)

evil dictators being notoriously spotty record-keepers

Ignore evil dictator Stalin's soviet archives

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago

Aren’t we always being told how the Nazis were meticulously documenting everything?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

Well yes, I'm quite confident they will.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago

Libs will just tell you that's fabricated anyway and can't be trusted because it's Soviet

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Except for when they want to say communists are like nazis, then we're suddenly meticulous record keepers and that's a sign of evil.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Or the massive archives of the third Reich. Fuckers tried to burn as much as possible and what's left still shows a meticolous documentation of their actions.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

The Quorators got a partnership with Cracked for like 3 months then got fired for supporting Palestine and clogging the Cracked office’s toilet

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You'd be surprised how many Cracked alumni show up in media.

Soren Bowie writes for American Dad! now (which I think is actually the most tolerable Seth show, probably because it's currently just absurdist humour and not random jabs at minorities like Family Guy)

Dan O'Brien writes for Last Week Tonight, which is lib but did help "radicalize" at least one person I know from radical centrism so I'll forgive the show for being lib

Doctor Mister Cody Johnson has a show on Youtube about how bad feral boars are with Katy Stoll

Robert Evans is now a famous fed

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Cracked inexplicably fired all those people and shut down their video section, then the site pretty much died.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

IIRC they got owned as part of facebook's "pivot to video" where they lied about analytics.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

All the more reason why I don't understand why we're digging up this dead horse to beat it more. Who cares?

I expect more refined dunking from my fellow hexbears

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

They also had a decent podcast hosted by the editor in chief Jack O’Brien but then he left for another site and all of cracked went downhill.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Cracked, home of the fact.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fidel is better than Jesus!

Yes.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ah Cracked, where Robert Fedvans cut his teeth before making it big as a podcaster grifting baby leftists.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

bellingcracked kelly

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 months ago

Praying to Fidel works though, I prayed for him to persecute plantation owners and it came true

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

There was already a post about this angery

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago

I see Robert Fedvans is back

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

I remember seeing that Ice Cream thing in a really shitty anti communist PSA we watched on hextube lmao

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

I never thought there'd be a Cracked article more obnoxious than their usual slop of "What if George Washington teamed up with freaking Batman!!!1 soypoint-1" but here we are

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

It works if you read it as 100% sarcasm

Way to stand up for the integrity of comedy, Vivian's dad! By contrast, we once got a sternly worded letter from a brand of laundry detergent and rolled over like a well-trained dog.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Whoa, I remember this site and article, both

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Wdym "like" US state department propaganda? fedposting