this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
129 points (98.5% liked)

United States | News & Politics

7299 readers
714 users here now

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Plutocrats like Thiel are constantly thinking about the fact that ordinary people vastly outnumber them and can kill them at any time. They think about it way more often than ordinary people do. It’s a point that they are acutely aware of at all times. It consumes their attention. They are always working on manipulating public consciousness to ensure that we don’t think as much as they do about how many more of us there are of them, and how we don’t have to put up with their domination of our society if we don’t want to.

As Michael Parenti once put it:

“I tell students when they say, ‘Oh they don’t care what we think. They ignore us’, and all that, and I say, ‘Oh no, no. That’s the only thing they care about you. The only thing they care about you is what you’re thinking. They don’t care if you eat correctly, they don’t care how your living conditions are, they don’t care that they’ve built up an inhuman and irrational traffic system that’s strangulating us and polluting our air, they don’t care about anything. The only thing about you they care about is what you’re thinking. In the morning, they start, ‘What’s going to be the story today? How do we manipulate, how do we control, how do we contain, how do we influence, how do we act upon what it is that they have in their minds?’”

Manipulating public consciousness is of existential importance to the ruling class, because no matter how many billions of dollars you amass, at the end of the day you’re still a soft skin sack of blood and bones like anybody else, and you share a society with huge numbers of people who can very easily hurt you if they want to. That’s why our minds are constantly being hammered with propaganda into accepting the status quo politics upon which our rulers have built their kingdoms.

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 minutes ago

Wait having a mountain of money does not make you invincible?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

He knows they’ve crossed a line into the most indefensible of behavior. He knows that they’re killing us for profit, and he’s begging us to stop defending ourselves.

The mask is off. They’re now openly asking us to die for their wealth.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

He's a dragon hiding in his cave guarding his hoard.

When dragons are about, there's only one thing you can do: slay them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

It’s really telling that their fear is causing them to spend so much on security and separating themselves from the masses rather than, I don’t know, acknowledging the grievances of the masses and spending a paltry percentage of their wealth to solve some widely recognized societal issues that government can’t or won’t address.

Seriously, the cognitive dissonance on display is mind boggling when so much of the population sees you and your kind as greedy leeches, and your response is, “They’re simply wrong!” as you pump obscene amounts of money towards your security, bunkers, and electing politicians who will protect your widely despised position in the world.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 hours ago

bunkers gotta have exhaust vents. those are super visible with IR.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

They're scared but they're scared nowhere near enough.

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

"One dead CEO."

"Many more to go."

Just quoting my favorite construction equipment, please don't ban.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Good. These monsters SHOULD be terrified. Note well that fear doesn’t get them to change their evil behaviors, it just makes them spend more on security. Every one of these bastards should never again get a good night’s sleep.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Spending more on private security out of their own pockets is the least of what they’re going to do. The capitalist class owns the media, funds the non-profits, and largely runs the government[1][2]. They’re going to crank up the security state/police state apparatus, which incidentally is Theil’s speciality.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago

Recent events have certainly displayed how fearful the owners of media are of the masses getting ideas all on their own.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

There's a simple answer really, if you think eating the rich is the move, go into security.

If your in high school and you have ideations of the new American pastime, consider this first.

If yr fit, and aware there ain't no war but the class war, join the military and make special ops. When yr time is done you're a shoe in for private security to the elite. Not only that, but then ur trained up as well, and will know how to do it and not get caught. Will it be hard? Yep, but guess what, life's hard, it supposed to be hard, otherwise what's the point of it? What the fuck else you doing with your time? You think you're gonna graduate and make a landing in the private sector? Buddy, that's what everyone thinks and look around. People smarter than you can't buy a house. I do not advocate defending a system that doesn't defend you, but I canl suggest using the system as a means to your own ends. The system is working against us all but there's still time to use the system to strike back from within. And if that means striking back with violence, then so be it. The law has shown itself to corrupt and hollow, not worthy of respect. With that goes the agreement that the government gets the monopoly on violence. They were supposed to use that to ensure life is fair for the rest of us, since they've abdicated, well, they put that ball in motion, not you, not me. They sold it out, we're just calling the spade a spade. They'll sacrifice everyone of us and our children before theyll accept even an inconvenience to their lives. We aren't people to them, so don't lose sleep over them.

The diseases of wealth are a cancer on our society

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yep. They really will be coming for our guns.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Come and get them. I dare you.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago

Almost like Thiel knows he's made a list.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

As it should have been since the beginning