[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

Our history with Cuba is shameful, and it's complete hypocrisy calling them a "sponsor of terrorism" when the CIA literally sponsored terrorism there and we attempted to assassinate Castro or overthrow their government countless times. All of their economic problems are blamed on "communism" despite the massive US embargo and our continued threatening of other countries that do trade with them. Then we get opinion pieces like Opinion: Mexico shamefully joins Russia, Venezuela in backing Cuba’s dictatorship when the UN almost unanimously votes against the embargo again, like they have for 30 years now.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Hey, I just want to say I'm sorry you feel like this. I know it sucks not being happy with how you look, and it's hard, but try to step back and look at yourself through someone else's eyes. You might not be a supermodel, but you know who else isn't? 99.9% of everyone else. And so what? I find plenty of people attractive who aren't models, and plenty of models are unattractive to me. And honestly that's the thing, everyone has different opinions on what is or isn't attractive. You'll always be your own worse critic, but try to seperate your personal opinions on beauty from the equation. You aren't unattractive, you just might not be your type. I remember seeing some of your older posts, and like many people said then, you actually do look good. Dysphoria and self-image problems can make that hard to accept, but don't let your brain convince you that what some jerks might have said to you elsewhere (or what you imagine people think about you) is more true or important than what people are saying to you here.

Looking at yourself you'll see every flaw, every detail of yourself that you can criticize or compare with others. But when others look at you, I promise that's not what they'll see. They'll just see you, and the happier and more confident in yourself that you are, the better you'll look to them. Being yourself and being happy about that will do miles more than anything else to improve how both you and other people see yourself.

Trying to fight things like this alone can be hard, so if you're able to do so, I'd recommend trying to speak to a therapist. They'll be much better at helping articulate things than any random comment online could. If you can't do that then reach out to the comments offering to talk. I'd always be down to, and while I can't personally offer much advice in the way of makeup or clothes or stuff like that, I'd be more than happy to just chat or help out with anything I do know about.

If nothing else though, I hope you can try and look at yourself through an outside perspective. When you see a stranger on the street you won't scrutinize them for features of their body you dislike, so why should you do that to yourself? All that will do is magnify those thoughts, so try to find the elements of yourself you are happiest with and internalize those feelings instead. They don't even need to be physical, they could be clothes, skills, personality traits, events, whatever. Try to celebrate anything and everything that makes you happy to be you.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 15 points 6 months ago

If you otherwise like lemmy I'd recommend dbzer0 or lemm.ee. Both are kinda large instances which ideally would be avoided, but both of them are also very fair with moderation and don't defederate from many places, which means you can decide whether or not to block one on your own. I also have heard decent stuff about .zip, so that might be worth checking out.

It does suck how many communities ended up centralized on .world, but a lot of the news related ones that are the most susceptible to over-moderation have fairly active alternatives on other instances.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 18 points 6 months ago

It's crazy how many articles I've seen that just casually imply or outright say he did it.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

"Candidate for elective public office in the state of Missouri" could be read either as can't be a candidate on the ballot in Missouri or can't be a candidate for a state position. It depends on if it means [candidate for public office] in Missouri or candidate for [public office in Missouri].

I don't like how laws are always written very formally like that, I feel like English (or any language tbh) is able to be misinterpreted easily enough as is, and the stilted way it's used in legal speak just leads to questions and misunderstandings like this. I'd much rather they be written as plainly as is possible and in ways that attempted to remove ambiguity instead of add it, though a lot of the time that's the point I imagine lol.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago

It definitely seems to be yeah, given the number of reposted tiktoks I've seen, and the facebook unitedhealthgroup laughing emoji ratio, and all the videos that corporate media are clutching their pearls over. There are tons of comments in Ben Shapiro's videos on the subject that are cheering on the death of a CEO, despite his attempt to paint this as only the "violent left". When Ben Shapiro's viewers disagree with him you know the feeling is widespread lol.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 22 points 6 months ago

Yeah, the point of a peaceful protest is meant as a neutral option, just to show that a large group exists who has some demand, and if the demand is not met it will escalate, either via disruption to the economy with strikes or disruption to society with violence. It shouldn't be blamed on protesters if it ends up escalating that way, because the protest was meant as the warning. Most people wouldn't blame a country that has repeatedly warned a neighbor to stop annexing it's land for fighting a war with them. If the country never went farther than warnings then they would all be empty threats. Somehow protests are thought of differently though, and if one turns violent it's blamed on the protesters and not the government for basically completely ignoring every protest movement in recent memory.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 26 points 6 months ago

I can definitely see why someone not as well versed in anarchist history could believe that, or if they specifically meant against the insurance industry. Either way though, I think it's important for people to know about that history of violence that led to meaningful social reforms. So many Americans think that workers rights, civil rights, and everything short of the ~~abolishment~~ rebranding of slavery was won through voting or peaceful protests.

Too many people believe that somehow a state has some divine morality granted to it, and justice can only happen within the confines of said state. No moral act can be carried out without the government sanctioning it, and any miscarriage of justice by the state is an abnormality.

There may be a monopoly on violence held by states against their people, but this doesn't give them some inherent right to be the ultimate arbiters of justice. Something being legal does not make it moral, and just because an act is illegal doesn't make it immoral.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah, I don't actually know too much about him, this is the first I've seen of him afaik (though I definitely could have read his stuff and not realized), but as far as I can tell he's pretty consistent with factual reporting. It did strike me as weird it was removed, like I get it's technically a substack page and all, but it's not like some random guys blog, and it's still the only reputable source for the full manifesto I've seen.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 14 points 6 months ago

That one is unconfirmed at best, it might be real, but there are several parts of it that don't really make sense.

[-] lukes26@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago

Yeah I'm split on if it's real or not. Like the released quotes don't match at all, but it could also be that the handwritten one was a draft he cut down before posting.

The roadtrip from presumably Maryland to California to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium is also kinda weird, like it feels unlikely that someone who is experiencing back pain that bad would take a road trip that long, even with medicine. Even driving for a few hours straight as someone with a good back who is still young can make my back hurt, so I imagine that someone who was waking up screaming every night because of the pain wouldn't be in a great position to drive cross country, no matter what medicine they were talking.

The fact it was posted the day of the arrest is also at least suspicious, like he could have had the paper copy on him because he posted it earlier before being arrested/spotted, but idk.

I kinda go back and forth on how much I believe it, so I'm definitely not saying it's conclusively fake or anything. I do think waiting for confirmation is probably a good idea like you say though, but regardless of the veracity it's definitely a heartbreaking piece of writing. So many of the stories people have shared, both in the wake of this and before, are so similar. I definitely believe this could be true.

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lukes26

joined 2 years ago