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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: April 26th, 2025

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  • Local government will do very little. Local businesses and individuals of a philanthropic mindset or personal will, that’s what we’ve got. “Civic duty” keeps it afloat, and those sort of businesses and people become more rare by the day. In the places that need it the most, the political mindset is so corrupted, I fear we will never get it back.

    If it existed, it’s dead now. Our current situation is my only proof. But I would love for you to prove me wrong.

    Pessimism or realism, I don’t know what the difference is anymore tbh. I’m not stopping, but damn it it feels like a losing battle.


  • The people that work in public radio are like career gov workers or direct care workers. I say that because I’ve been two of those three, and count some career beurocrats as good friends.

    . The people that work in these industries will sell their souls to keep fighting the good fight. Underpaid and understaffed. But in this case, the economics will start to eat away at local stations and the people who truly believe will be forced to abandon it eventually.

    Economics are economics.

    At the end of the day, it’s a public service. The federal government is a necessary part of how it continues to exist. Public services are not very viable through charity as a sole funding source. They aren’t money makers. They provide a free service for the bare minimum.

    The most insidious bit is that none of these stations will disappear tomorrow. They are filled with dedicated individuals that will fight tooth and nail to keep them running. And donors that will try their best to keep them afloat.

    The true toll, like everything this administration is doing, will take years to unfold. One by one stations will drop out and close. And it will be with a whimper. A death by a thousand cuts. Exsanguinated to death drop by drop.

    Many will drop out before this administration ends. And I have little faith in the compitence of their replacements to restore this funding. Even if “my side” wins.

    There really isn’t that much federal influence to the public broadcasting sector, other than providing funds and some regulations on what they can or can’t say. And it’s not a ‘can or can’t say’ propaganda thing. It’s a “don’t put a dollar value to products in your underwriting”, or " don’t endorse and sell trump gold coins to the elderly" sort of restrictions. Public radio doesn’t have advertisers. They have underwriters. They get their name out as a sponsor to the programming, not to sell a product. Those are the rules.

    They are just stealing funds from nonprofits at this point.




  • It’s a reference to a silly story where the lesson is to not be a judgemental shithead just because someone else fucked up.

    Yeah it’s the bible. I don’t care if God is real or not, nor your opinion on it. I also use references from the writings of Vonnegutt, the music Dolly Parton, and 90s anime.

    Because you can get moral lessons from fiction. We do it all the time. My reference isn’t even that deep. But somehow the ten word literary cudgel I bludgeoned you with still didn’t make the point. It’s a cautionary statement.

    You are acting like the crowd of shitheals that wanted to stone a woman to death, just like in the biblical story. That’s not a good look nor is it a good indication of your ‘moral compass’. Sorry I thought you could infer that from my one sentence quote from a very well distributed piece of literature.




  • I vented on a local Facebook group when that happened. Saying that the continued police abuse of the emergency alert system would quickly cause the alerts to mean nothing. I frequently also got amber alerts for the opposite end of the state, well over twelve hours away.

    To say that my concern was an unpopular opinion would be a massive understatement. People were downright hostile. A lot of locals could never fathom that what I was saying was true. And they used all the four letter words to tell me so. A sheriff’s deputy called me a godless cop hater and a disgusting person.

    Fortunately that particular cop is unemployed for abusing his power and some domestic abuse allegations. Oh and trying to fight his neighbor while in uniform.

    And and I’m still right. They abused the alert system so much it is useless. And children and the elderly and innocent paid that price with their lives.


  • I’m a dairy farmer. A lot of my friends and associates are too. Our community is built on immigrant labor.

    This is wrecking shit. The paranoia is at levels you cant imagine. The workers are scared. The owners are scared. Regardless of income level or status, everyone is stressed to say the least.

    The only consolation I have had was, just this past weekend, I got to look at my neighbor who was stressing and venting about what he will do when ice shows up. And I looked this man dead in the eyes and told him “you got exactly what you voted for, and exactly what you supported”

    And he looked at me and agreed. “Yeah, you are right” he was defeated. To say that to me is an acknowledgement of absolute defeat.

    It’s funny It sounds nice to think “I warned you”. That smug superiority sounds good in your mind. It’s vindication. It’s another thing entirely to watch you community terrified to move because they collectively fucked up. Vindication doesn’t help the people kidnapped from your community. The destruction of generations of work and mutual cooperation.

    What a fucking shitty consolation prize.




  • I own a dairy. We pay a fare wage. I’ve never had a white guy last longer than a week. Jobs for immigrants, legal or not, are important to my community, my local economy, and our nation as a whole. Historically, this sort of thing is old hat.

    I’m constantly torn listening to the comments and replies on Lemmy that are spot on, but also have no context to how anything actually works.

    My " no kings" truck window paint today drew some ire from the locals, but I’ll stand by my employees and friends. It maybe helps that I’ve also been driving around for years with a “Ted Cruz ate my son” and a local NPR sticker as well. They know not to talk politics at the bar with me anymore. But damn it if I’m not trying in my own way.

    All in all, we may be staring to make some headway on this immigration/ice thing. But it’s not happening fast enough. It never should have gotten this bad to begin with.


  • Yeah I’m the idiot for not believing I can outlast a United States government spending spree.

    Have you seen all the wars we’ve been in the last 25 years? Have you seen our defence budget? Our janitorial budget? Our paper clip budget? Fucking hell. For all the financial suffering you are willing to “suffer through”, most goes to corporations. Not the government.

    You aren’t even a rounding error in the feds books. To do that would make you a multimillionaire.

    And the people around you? Yeah good luck. Just a fraction of a percent under fifty percent, believe it or not, they voted for this shit. They have been playing the ‘financial suffering for the greater good’ card since the tariffs started. And they are better organized and propogandized. Trust me, I’ve heard it a lot. And they even have hats!

    Let’s try to come up with some better reasoning before you think your personal morals and convictions can outlast the united states ability to throw money at literally everything…