It's my theory that they want to give ice cameras so they can more easily record the protesters' faces without having to take out their phones since they are making some sort of database.
The company that makes the cameras (Axon, they also make tasers) has a whole web service for sharing the cam videos. So it’s already going to computers that can run facial recognition. I mean, that exists now. Of course more data means more protesters profiled.
Axon tried to recruit me to make payload drones that definitely won't be used to drop grenades and "definitely" won't be sold to US police and paramilitary to drop chemical weapons on civilians because it is "against their company values" (the company that tazes each other as an initiation rite).
I was debating on doing it to try to make everything work as badly as possible and learn how to make civilian countermeasures, but I ended up telling them to go fuck themselves and that they were liars, in no uncertain terms.
likely it will be linking to palintir as well, since we know the new speedcameras, red light are doing the same.
Democrats are just paid opposition. There’s a few good ones but the majority are bad
I don't think this is gonna sound "civil", because I genuinely think we are so completely fucked in the US that if we want to avoid either a Somalia-style civil war (which is really bad BTW) or a dictator in power … we need to do some pretty drastic stuff. And … even this is kinda dangerous IMO, but also IMO "safe" was something that went byebye in the 2024 election.
We must primary worthless Democrats like Schumer anywhere we can. "Ohhhhhkaayyyy…" FUCKING NO DAMMIT, NO MORE! This surrender bullshit has to stop and that means he's gotta be removed from "leader" at the least. Then we need to get every Democrat we can into office, with strong leadership in the Senate and Stronger in the House. We must flip the Senate.
Next, Vance needs to be impeached. Yes Vance. Congress doesn't actually need "cause" but claiming an army of fucking stormtroopers have "absolute immunity" to murder Americans is cause enough. He's gotta go. And Congress must refuse to appoint his replacement. Because when you then impeach Trump over … pick a crime, really? That makes the Speaker our president. You see why I said this is dangerous, because one party rule always is corrupt. If we come out of this with a democracy where elections matter it'll be a miracle.
The new president can begin firing Trump's cabal of feckless, corrupt incompetents, and sith lord Stephen Miller too. At that point we need a special counsel to start investigatin' and referring people for prosecutions as the evidence is collected. And the prosecutions need to happen. I don't think people accept less than that. The evidence has to come out, and people need to be accountable. That is gonna include some in Congress. (Although frankly every Republican in Congress had access to classified info that proved a lot of Trump's crimes from the start, so IMO they're all co-conspirators. But I doubt even firebrand Democrats have the guts to charge them all.)
This is a monumental task and I have no idea how it gets accomplished.
None of your plan is realistic because no one in a position of power to do anything agrees with you.
If you're an American voter, you are. That's the thing about sea changes in politics. They come from people who have very little power. And we do have very little power. It happens when there's a damned lot of us, and not until then. The last time was when they kicked out the railroad barons and created anti-monopoly laws that are still on the books, mostly unused since the 70s. The time before that was pre-civil war. And before that was the revolutionary war itself.
These things don't always have to be done via war, but they do have to be done by an overwhelming majority of people. Fatalism doesn't help. Organizing does.
If you're agreeing with ameancow's suggestion that the solution is to primary non-progressive democrats, that's not how we seize our power as the working class imo. The Democrats rigged their primaries against Bernie Sanders then had a court declare they were legally within their right to do so.
"[The DNC] could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their right..." - DNC attorney Bruce Spiva
You are trying to play democracy with a fundamentally undemocratic institution, according to their own legal claims. And even if you win, they're excellent at corrupting people - just look at AOC Pelosi voting to fund the Zionazi entity.
On the other hand, you're totally right that we have the real power in this country as the working class. Electoral politics - especially on the federal level - just aren't how we're going to effectively exercise that power. I vote anyway, it's not a difficult thing to do, so why not? But I'm not under the illusion that it will save us. We have to hit them in the only place they care about: their wallets, bank accounts, stock portfolios, and GDP.
We've already seen great progress on a local/community front with new progressive, even socialist mayors and representatives being elected to major positions of power, flying in the face of the narrative that all elections are rigged.
The USA is huge and made of 50 individual states each with their own varied systems of rules and political allegiances, and the GOP and this dumb administration broadly have been way overreached thinking they can strangle the entire thing into submission.
We can absolutely get this thing turned around if we keep this effort towards our local representation and leadership. We can work on deposing every incumbent Democrat and actually getting in people who want to go against the mainstream status-quo and finally squash this old-money, monoparty kayfabe.
Your biggest enemy in this is going to be other self-described leftists who think that it doesn't matter, that politics cannot change anything and expect immediate reward in the form of some kind of "armed revolution" and anything less than that is too boring and slow for their attention spans.
Otherwise, the USA is a huge, slow-turning boat, the things that happen now have an effect months or years downstream, so it's very hard to predict overall public feelings as more and more of Trump's admin wrecks shit and creates problems for people. We can easily capitalize on this.
https://www.progressivevictory.win/ is an organization who helps link people up with progressive candidates in their area to help support or volunteer to help. They helped get people like Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson elected recently among others.
(Save your angry pushback Lemmy browsers, I block doomers, tankies and edgy teenagers with glee, get off your ass and do something useful.)
"more cameras", "more training"...
are just codewords for "more budget", a white supremacists masked gang, led by probably history's worse pedophile. and the "opposition" is asking to raise their budget.
Centrist dems? The Democrats are right wing. The Republicans are far right. There is no left or centre in US politics. If any is centrist, they are considered communist. What Americans consider to be left is still considered right by the rest of the world. The only centrist American politician I know of is Mamdani and the only slightly-left one I know of is Bernie Sanders. But the Democratic party is definitely on the right side of the spectrum.
By only electing for DSA candidates, the party can be pulled leftward.
Unfortunately, I believe the only way we will ever get another fair, uncompromised election is by making extensive use of louisettes.
Get ready for a lot of left-splitting posts like this as the midterms get nearer.
Uhh isn't this exactly what we need before the primaries?
Everytime someone would point out how shitty some of these Dem candidates are we are told "save it for the primaries". Well here we are.
I'm always taking the side of harm reduction, but that's pretty much reserved for when you're in the voting booth and there's nothing else to be done. I'm some rando from overseas, but this applies everywhere in the world where you can still vote.
Before elections is the time to take action so you don't end up having to choose between evils
Absolutely primary these guys, but remember that most incumbents will win their primaries.
Well, centrist incumbents will, since the party protects them.
Progressive incumbents like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman didn't get the favoritism that centrist incumbents like Henry Cuellar do.
Because big tent politics and capitulating to centrist/right-wing Democrats has worked out so well for us.
Criticism, it’s called criticism.
How does it feel to have learned absolutely nothing for over a decade?
That’s the idea. That or convince fence sitters to not vote.
"Do not criticize the Party!"
It's certainly convenient for the genocide-and-nothing-else wing that any criticism of them is "splitting the party"
This is the difference between Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil.
No justice, no budget. ICE shouldn't get another bloody dollar until every officer that has violated any law or constitutional provision is in jail. Democrats voting to fund ICE need to be named and shamed as trump boot lickers. Pressure should be made toward the DNC and state parties to expel them.
ICE shouldn’t get another bloody dollar
Ever.
They are fundamentally a fascist institution. They cannot be reformed. The only people they hire are the sort of people who apply to join ICE, and there is no good reason to do that.
Because there are no leftist dems. All are either centre or center right.
And there are no center republicans, all are either far ~~left~~ right or extreme far ~~left~~ right.
Their goals are the same, just slightly different methods.
I had a co worker today say trump was the lesser evil between him and Kamala. Then proceeded to say he was better than Biden, Obama, and Bush. I've lost all respect for him.
Another one said there's no reason to worry about politics because you can't fix them. They also vote republican, 100% only because they supported the second amendment.
There's nothing you can say to change their mind. We're just fucked as a country because our average IQ seems to be in the single digits.
they are center right, not even center specifically. schumer and 13 other senators, + hakeem are all closer the og gop.
Having body cameras is great, but only if there's consequences for acting illegally. ICE knows they won't face any repercussions while fascists are running the government.
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