LukeS26 (He/They)
(He/They)
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.
join-lemmy.org has a list of instances you can join. If you just want to look through a list that’s a great place to browse.
If you’re looking for specific recommendations I’d say lemm.ee is great in terms of moderation, they don’t overmoderate and tend not to defederate from many places so users can kinda choose themselves whether or not to block an instance. Dbzer0 is similar, it’s the instance with the big piracy community which .world blocked, and the admin is also great.
Both of those are in the top 10 communities in terms of size though iirc, which ideally people would avoid the biggest instances and join smaller ones to try and prevent centralization like what happened with .world communities.
Lemmy.zip is also great from what I’ve heard, and while it’s not small, it’s top 20 instead of top 10 at least.
I’ve always found that so stupid yeah. “Cop killing” is always painted as this ultimate evil and so much worse than killing a regular person, especially in all the copaganda shows. But theoretically the whole reason cops have so much legal leeway and can use so much force and whatnot is because they’re taking on a risk by putting themselves in the line of duty (even though you’re actually more likely to die as a pizza delivery driver).
Maybe he was on track for that or maybe he would have taken a different path, we don’t actually know. But it doesn’t matter because what did happen is he became radicalized against corporations (or at least corporate healthcare) and took action. What he did and what he believes now are far more important than who else he could have become.
I’d honestly even say killing Bin Laden was less morally acceptable than killing Thompson tbh. One had 0 additional casualties, and one was preceded by a war which fucked the entire middle east, created multiple power vaccuums, killed thousands of civilians, and involved literal warcrimes.
I mean honestly the being knee deep in blood because a revolution started after one guy was acquitted for killing a CEO sounds way more like a movie plot to me but idk.
Regardless, the point of that wasn’t that “the CEO is dead, now everyone is saved!!!” Right now we literally have a situation where a dictator was removed from power in Syria. The outcome of that is still unknown, and could turn into something worse or something better, time will tell. But either way no-one is really saying “how dare they violently overthrow the government, don’t you know that violence is bad”, because that would be a stupid reaction to Assad being removed.
In any of these situations saying that the person using violence to respond to violence deserves to be imprisoned doesn’t make sense. Luigi Mangione would not be someone I’d feel unsafe walking past in the street, so why should they be locked up? The point of a prison system should be preventing someone from committing crime again, but I wouldn’t be worried about that in the case of Mangione so it makes no sense to sentence them to prison.
I also don’t want a violent revolution to come from this. Some violent actions leading to a government making large reforms as a concession to avoid further violence is something that happened all throughout history, and is how we got the New Deal. Something like that coming out of actions like this would be great, but my ideal system of change is more based on mutual aid and setting up dual power to allow people alternatives to replace corporations or weak government programs. But if a violent revolution does happen, it still doesn’t make sense to blame the people being oppressed and not the corporations doing the oppressing.
Imagine if someone was living in a dictatorship. The dictator was passing laws and policies leading to thousands dying yearly. They were embezzling funds from the country and stealing money from citizens, putting them in debt and leading to all the consequences that would entail. They increased the prices of essential goods like medicine in order to skim off the top. They never directly killed anyone, all of the pain and suffering and death they caused was due to policies that technically seperated them from the outcome, being enforced by courts, banks, police, hospitals, and prisons. And they also never broke any laws. Sure people died, or were forced into debt causing them to lose their homes, but all of that was allowed since they helped make the laws.
You’ve heard stories of other distant countries which don’t have these problems, but your country spends a considerable amount of time and money to convince you that those other governments are worse or impossible. Even so, the people tried voting this dictator out, but they rigged the elections so that no matter the outcome they still kept power. Some tried leaving, but all the neighbouring countries have the same type of government, so it was futile.
If in this situation someone kills the dictator very few people would believe that the assassin should be in jail. They didn’t kill someone because they were violent or dangerous, they did so out of desperation and a desire for improvement. This assassin won’t be a threat to any other citizen, only to other dictators doing the same thing. Why imprison someone who was fighting for a better future?
I can’t claim to know your exact situation or anything, but it could be possible that some of what you see as people thinking you’re gross isn’t really that. If you experience enough mistreatment or hate then other things that might have a different explanation can definitely feel related to it. I’m not saying that as a way to try and minimize your experiences or anything, but sometimes it can help to try and find other reasons that people act how they do. If you have a negative image of yourself then it makes sense you’d imagine any sort of negative interaction is because of that, but people are complicated and there’s no saying what necessarily causes someone to do anything.
Either way, the people who would bully anyone are assholes. If anyone mistreats someone because they don’t conform to their specific standards then they don’t deserve to have an opinion on you. I know that it’s easier said than done, but try to ignore those people. Your self worth shouldn’t be based on how jerks feel.
No matter how people act or how you perceive yourself, you are still worthy of love and happiness. There will always be people who find you unattractive for a variety of reasons, just like anyone else. But there are also tons of people who will find you attractive for those same reasons and more. And like I said before, what matters the most at the end of the day isn’t how others feel, it’s how you do. So try to go easy on yourself and remember that one person’s opinion isn’t a fact.
If you want to change something about yourself to make you happy, go for it! But trying to change yourself to make jerks happy will never work, because they can always find something new to criticize.
