I mean the US is certainly in distress
That seems like a very bad sign. Someone wanted a message to get out to the public, but I'm not entirely sure what can be effectively done about it. Credit to the person with the balls to send out the warning, though.
I'm not entirely sure what can be effectively done about it.
History offers no control groups; there is no "right" way to proceed. What's certain is that "nothing" is not the answer.
Maybe we should double down on capitalism again.
It's the only move the US has used in living memory.
Like when Elon gets rid of "all regulations" make private bounty hunters/hitman legal again?
Anything is legal if it's not prosecuted.
And with a dismantled government, how much can they really prosecute?
History offers one very good "right" way, imo.
I'm not even joking but if this doesn't happen there's no hope for the future. we're past the point of simply prosecuting and hoping they get some time in prison. examples need to be made so others know that just because the supreme court said it's legal to do whatever the fuck you want doesn't mean you're getting away with it from the public.
Kudos to the person who is sending the correct message. Everyone who believes in protecting the US Constitution should fly the US flag upside down.
I think we need to do more than that. The flag is a distress signal. We have to help the people who are distressed
I don't understand what it's going to take for someone to do something. Protests are not going to work when they're holding all our money, services, rights, data, etc hostage, and threatening all our public servants. We already had a hard time protesting before this, because health care is tied to employment. It's not a coincidence that they're going after Medicare and Medicaid. They want an entire nation of indentured servants. Unable to own anything, including our own freedom. When we can't work anymore we can just go die in the wilderness like animals I guess. Hmm where have we heard that before?
Everyone is terrified and exhausted. It seems pretty evident that the election was outright stolen, and I have a hard time believing nobody in power suspected something that many of us immediately called, not with the mountains of evidence that's been stacking up for months, years even. So why didn't they do anything? Why did they wait until Trump was sworn in to even talk about it?
I see Canadians online talking about Americans like we chose this. But we didn't, it was forced upon us, and we're begging for help! Who can we turn to if not our allies? What is going on???
Edit: To those claiming that I'm just as bad as the J6ers, that the election was not tampered with and Harris just ran a terrible campaign; whether unwittingly or not, you are part of the problem. You're falling for the suppression and misinformation tactics, or you're facilitating them. I'm editing my comment to compile some links, but let me be clear, I fully expect that you're going to deny these facts as well, and move the goalposts again. My refusal to engage is not a concession, it's me protecting what little emotional energy I have left.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections
Some great information about voter suppression from a trusted journalist: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
This guy's compilation is great
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/
https://www.youtube.com/live/284VFHrO8Nc
https://sos.ga.gov/news/georgias-2024-statewide-risk-limiting-audit-confirms-voting-system-accuracy ~ please note the date (November 20th) and how soon after the election this was, in business days. This link should be taken into consideration with a few more facts, including what we know about their flawed 2020 audit and Trump's famous phone call. Here is a good examination of the audit showing two very important oddities that should be further examined: https://goudanachos.github.io/pages/georgia-rla-discrepancy-analysis-2024/
https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-voting-machines-trump-investigation-2018890
https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-01-06/musk-and-putins-dual-interference-in-europe.html ~ an article about just some of the countries where there are suspected or substantiated instances of election interference.
Yes, this is what NATO is for. It is an alliance meant to prevent fascism from taking hold. Just because it's only ever been used in non member countries doesn't mean it can't be used on us, especially if Trump continues to threaten allies. Talking about this leading to WWIII is a strawman argument. You don't know that will happen and it is not a good reason to not be asking for help from our allies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
To those who think comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany are hyperbole:
I fully expect that some of the bad actors from reddit are here as well. For anyone else reading this: Question their motives. If they're trying to deny what we can see with our own eyes, their intentions are not good.
I will continue to add links as I'm able.
Watch this if you haven't already: https://youtu.be/CVgNJf6CsBA
It wasn't stolen and it wasn't forced on you. Depressingly enough, turkeys, it seems, do sometimes vote for Christmas. I totally agree with you about the awfulness of the situation but - he told you how he was going to govern, he told you what he was going to do and then he won the election that enables him to do it. You did, as a nation, choose this.
I don't know how any nation state can really intervene on that basis. Its not like Hitler steam rolling Poland or Putin annexing the Crimea - this isn't an invasion or a hostile takeover, it's an elected President carrying out the will of the people that voted for him.
I'm not going to argue with you, I get enough of that on reddit. But there is a literal mountain of evidence, including their own statements and sketchy behavior, hard data, unsecured voting machines, various voter suppression tactics, ballots that were tossed, code that was published online months (possibly more than a year) before the election, and one of the twerps currently taking over the treasury wrote code that can falsify ballots while he was an intern for Musk.
Also, it is like Hitler, they're using the same exact playbook, and while there are some key differences there is no arguing that this is the exact reason NATO exists. Justin Trudeau could invoke article 4 for threats of invasion. Someone from our government should still be able to invoke article 5. These international agreements exist because when the highest power in the nation is compromised, we need outside help.
People keep saying this, but WHO?
Who are you talking about?
Who is this "somebody" you keep talking about showing up to save us?
Look, nobody is coming to save us, and asking somebody else to risk harm on your behalf is selfish.
If we object, it isn't on somebody else to show up and save us, it's on us.
If you aren't willing to make the moves yourself, who the fuck are you to ask somebody else to.
Nobody is coming to save us, folks. It's either us, me and you, or it's nobody.
In 2016, people thought that Trump was the problem. That if Trump left, we could have civility restored to the electoral process. Defeating Trump won't solve the problem because he isn't it - it is the electorate. The voters need to SEE what will happen when this or that occur.
Deport all the immigrants, see the damage that brings, then bring them back with legal protections this time.
Cancel all the science, see how far behind we get, then bring it back with all the funding to make the next moonshot.
Get rid of all fogien aid, watch as our global power dimishes, the vote to bring it back with a clear and true purpose other than empire building.
The people don't know WHY these things are important, and are unwilling to listen or learn. Thus, the only teacher is to experience. But to quote Trump: "There will be some pain" when doing it.
I don't disagree with you and I would love it if people had to experience the consequences of their poor decisions and learn hard lessons that they've been evading for years. The problem is that millions of innocents are and will be caught in the crosshairs. This is a matter of life or death for many people who did not vote for him and it is unconscionable to allow all those people to die just so a bunch of loud racist hillbillies with lead poisoning can learn a lesson.
Fair, I just see no other way of swaying minds without consequences. We tried 4 years of shielding people from Trump's baser urges, and we ended with thousands of people dying each day to COVID. Then 4 year later THEY VOTED HIM BACK IN.
100%. Even after he leaves office, is anyone confident that the country will collectively go "well that was embarrassing, anyway, back to normality now!"
Imagine being the person running this up the pole at the fucking state department.
The gravity well produced from the balls of this person (all genders included) is pulling me from miles away.
people need to start seriously protesting
Yeah but we need to stop occupying sidewalks and start occupying gated communities. The fact that protest organizers won't do this says everything you need to know about them - they prefer passive action that does nothing but maintain the status quo. I've been to over 100 protests everything from workers strikes to BLM to Occupy Wall St, and i've learned that occupying a sidewalk that the oligarchs don't walk on does nothing but make the cause look pathetic. We need to protest where the oligarchs will be afraid, anything less is just playing into their hands.
It looks like this is the end.
The house has been burning and smoking for hours and people are still thinking that the fire just started
Here's something we could fix:
We have no recall option! WTF! We should have such a mechanism. We should ask Congress to enact a law where we the people can recall the president via votes if we can collect enough signatures just like we are able to do for other things.
We do. It's the 2nd amendment. Literally what it was written for, the forceful reclamation of democratic freedom should it be taken by a tyrannical leadership. Too bad everyone that actually gives a damn about that option is on red team, and blue team thinks the 2nd amendment is for killing children and nothing else.
I mean, to be fair, the red team thinks it's pretty much only for killing children too...
The State is in distress. Who will answer the call? Who will come it's aid? We have all been summoned.
An actual use. Yeah send help!
Performative resistance from inside the machine. Cute gesture, but distress signals only work when someone's actually coming to help. Meanwhile, career diplomats keep writing memos and processing visas while posting their quiet protests on social.
Remember when we thought these symbols meant something would change? Now it's just content for the outrage cycle. Tomorrow there'll be a strongly worded letter, maybe some resigned LinkedIn posts from mid-level FSOs.
The machinery keeps grinding, upside down flag or not. Though I suppose watching institutional despair go viral is peak 2025.
- Is this real
- What does it mean?
- Where are we in terms of worrying? Should I begin to start to think about worrying or something more urgent?
- I see little reason to doubt it
- It means whoever hoisted it considers there to be a crisis, which is consistent with accounts of public offices being overtaken by random young white men who are rapidly taking control.
- Speaking as a non-American political scientist having worked a little with rule of law and fascism, it seems a bit late to start worrying. Think about what you can do for yourself, your neighbours, and your country, urgently or in the longer term. It's going to be ugly for a while.
#3 depends where you are on the hit list I suppose. I'm trans, so I'm well past worry-o-clock and am actively making arrangements to leave the country. Someone like a cishet white male tech worker has a lot less to worry about though
Wasn't the upside down us flag thing used by j6'ers? Are the line workers taking it back as the symbol of a stolen country for themselves, or is this Musk and crew indicating we're fucked?
It's a sign of distress.
They were distressed, but it's only because they're sore losers and couldn't cope with Trump losing.
This is actual distress, it's appropriate this time.
Its nothing exclusive to J6. Its an international sign that an insurrection or coup has occurred or is occurring.
Not quite, it's an international sign that a vessel is in distress.
Then mostly right wing lunatics co-opted it to mean that our country is in distress.
Which they co-opted from protesters in the 60's, rallying against the Vietnam war, which they co-opted from the Revolutionary war, where (allegedly, much harder to source), the revolutionaries also flew the Union Jack inverted. Its history to mean insurrection in the US is as old as the US.
Its been used in many other instances internationally, and yes, also at sea with a much deeper history to signal distress. Regardless, the pedantry is both technically and figuratively misplaced.
which they co-opted from the Revolutionary war, where (allegedly, much harder to source), the revolutionaries also flew the Union Jack inverted.
If they did, I assume a half dozen vexillology enthusiasts with good eyesight got very concerned.
It has been used by punk bands and Anarchists waaay before that
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