A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
they never taught people "civil disobedience" but refer to them as "protests, or deadly demostrations" its all whitewashed.
they did teach use about checks and balances, in order to placate the masses, so they dont anything that threatens the status quo.
You can read the constitution of the united states for free. You can also read the constitution of every US state for free (except probably some red states; but I’m just assuming that. ((You can also find that out for yourself for free…)))
Checks and balances are real, they have just been exploited from time immemorial. Go ahead and civil disobedience as much as you want you sweet summer child / foreign agent!
Mlk jr got cameras.
Malcolm X got results.
Their combination got results. You think they're ever going to give Malcolm what he demanded? Fuck no. They give it to King and then shoot the both of em for good measure. King made the movement to sympathetic to just start shooting.
and that’s cool, just don’t stand in the way of the people who push Malcolm X, so we can have both
School is indoctrination. I'm surprised so many of my peers don't realize it.
When I was in China (country of birth), they did national anthem like either weekly or daily. I think it was every week, they would also do a flag raising ceremony. They then did a weird ceremony where first graders did wore little red scarfs, which I as an adult looked it up and its apparantly called the Young Pioneers program where they attempt to brainwash children into their "communist" ideology. ("communist" in quotes because it wasn't even real communism). So yea I always get weirded out by these weird rituals.
Then when I immigrated to the US, they do the "pledge of allegience" and the national anthem of the US, of course, being a foreign national at the time, I didn't do the pledge, but just stood up to sort of fit in, but I remained silent. I thought these rituals, national anthem, pledge of allegience, making kids wear red scarfs, was normal, just part of every country.
Then I grew older and went online and apparantly Europeans tell me the flah of allegience wasn't considered normal.
I eventually got US citizenship derived from my mother's naturalization. I did eventually get attached to the concept of the constitution and rule of law, checks and balances (I did NOT have any attachments to the US administrations or congress btw, that's a whole differe t thing). But there was always something very uncanny about the way they teach things.
They keep saying "freedom" "freedom" all over everything they teach, and when they teach civics, teachers say that "police cannot do X if they don't have probable cause" "you have rights" "innocent until proven guilty", but we know for a fact that these things do happen, but of course, they are brushed off as "mistakes", and yet cops don't seem to get held accountable.
So again, I slowly see the same pattern all over again, different country, similar indoctrination.
And to top it all off, while the US (pre 2025) was considered "democratic", schools are anything but. Schools admin and teachers always have a lot of draconian rules and some doesn't even make sense.
Like wtf is school uniform, teaching conformity and just "obey" the rules, no questions asked? Also, you aren't allowed to wear any outerwear even if its winter and you're cold unless you purchase the school's sweaters, wtf? This is a liberal city btw. So much for freedom. Freedom to get a fucking cold.
Security cameras everywhere in school, they had fucking security patrolling inside the school, like wtf its K-12.
The fucking police the bathrooms so much. They sometimes LOCK THE FUCKING BATHROOM because "drugs". LOL FUCK YOU. I'M GONNA PISS ON THE FUCKING FLOOR. (sry for caps).
Its just, when you've seen so much shit from schools in 2 different nationalistic countries, and also have to deal with your abusive parents' bullshit, you quickly develop the pattern recognition to recognize authoritarianism.
Public school is indoctrination. (And private school would be much worse, especially religious ones). Sad that people don't recognize this.
You ever read any Foucault? He famously called schools prisons
School uniforms are absolutely NOT the norm in usa cities for the record
They're not uncommon though. The only good rationale I've heard is its good for stopping students for feeling bad/getting bullied because their parents don't buy them the most expensive clothes.
There was actually a pretty good comment here once about how MLK and Gandhi only really succeeded with progress when a visible and difficult threat to the system was perceived.
Civil rights stagnated until the ramp up with the march to Washington and widespread riots from groups like the black panthers were damaging public society.
Similarly, Gandhi had trouble convincing the British to even consider independence until widespread communal violence swept the nation in the aftermath of WWII.
Both figures were touted as succeeding in history books due to their non violent movements, but in reality they simply became the center of attention for media at the time which solidified them as icons of their respective movements.
Ironically, both were assassinated which means their opposition definitely viewed them as a a powerful political threat, and not just some supporters for peace.
Gandhi had trouble convincing the British to even consider independence until widespread communal violence swept the nation in the aftermath of WWII. What are you talking about?
Gandhi was the peaceful alternative that gave Britain a place at the table.
Oh for fuck's sake, if you want to start a revolt then fucking start it already. Fascism is here right now, so you need to fight it right now. You're doing no good by sitting around and saying "I would have totally joined the Revolution if one had spontaneously formed around me."
If a violent resistance isn't feasible in the here-and-now (and it isn't) then you need to find other ways to resist.
Bruh, it sounds like you and OP are both on the same side. Like the point of this post is to kind of -nudge nudge- that "disobedient" thought that's teetering on the edge of realization, without making a direct call for action. You call for it one way, they call for it another way, but both of you seem to be attempting to conjure the same idea.
Why in the world waste time complaining that your teammate isn't using the same tactics as you? We have to stop letting arbitrary shit divide us. If we all have the same goal, we should be aiming toward it together.
Ok I go do a revolution now, thanks for the pep talk.
We will join if we hear about it
yep, I need to polish my rifle before I go out, wouldn't want it to jam when its hero time. Will be right behind you. Actually I need to buy that rifle then polish it. Actually I need to decide which rifle. AR15 right? I heard they are heavy though? and probably do some mandatory classes and paperwork, license fees. Practice at the range. Etc. The point is, I am right behind you... We all are.
seriously though, why are we all so sedate about fascism and losing our rights? I think its because we dont imagine ourselves to be in imminent danger yet? Its all still very abstract. And yes, I am white and male, and have enough resources to be OK on a day to day basis. the price of eggs being higher and the news sucking every day, and our country's participating in war crimes are each unbearable, but on a day to day basis, its still mostly just expensive eggs. I can always worry about the rest... later.
I've been out here being revolting for almost 2 hours now. Not much progress. Let me know if you hear something.
lemme know where and I'll come join you. I'll bring a 6 pack and some chips.
checks and balances is not a lie it just does not work when folks don't do their job. its like they did the patriot act because bush jr. didn't do his job. No system can work when a significant amount of the components are bad actors.
Yeah, we entrusted too many shitty people.
Threat actors are colluding... Democrats included
I wouldn't say democrats are in on it. I would say democrats are being lead by the same strings. It all ties back to the money. GOP and DNC alike are results of private interests. Now, how the private interests align cant really be known but it is something to think about. I mean its safe to assume thier only function is to amass more wealth but then we are just talking about capitalism.
Truth is, normal people arent part of the equation they are a remainder that gets deemed negligible or shuffled to the side. Its absurd, really, when they are the driving force but to consider them anything other than a statistic is against all modern theories of capitalism.
This is probably the wrong venue for this discussion but I just wanted to say, I dont think democrats are in on it but are just as much chess pieces being moved around as the GOP are.
Starting from middle school (15-ish years ago) I was always enraged by the fact that people blindly follow a lying dictator. How hard can it be to not praise shitty lying scumbags? They are simple creatures who eat and shit like the rest of us. Dems are just controlled opposition (mostly). When I told some candidates are puppets I was laughed at, but later on everybody was shocked that their beloved candidate is just a paid actor.
Truth is most people are stupid af. They will always be manipulated by other stupid but evil people. All this shit will prevent normal people from being cooperative and resilient community. Society is doomed and Carl Sagan agrees on that. The only solution is smart dictator as in China (yeah people will hate me for this statement). People will suffer but as community they will prevail upon becoming sustainable.
You might disagree, laugh at me and call me a doomer, but I am already desensitized to it.
I can get behind that.. They are both regime whores with specific functions.
They dont call to shots, they execute daddy's master plans.
What did you guys not learn about civil disobedience?
It's non-violence, but it breaks the laws "designed to keep things civil." It's meant to disrupt, it's means to obstruct, it's meant to annoy the shit out of the people you are protesting.
I haven't seen any civil disobedience. Which is weird because the boomers did it all the time.
A protest isn't civil disobedience. Boycotts aren't civil disobedience.
A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.
A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.
The absolute whining from people when they are moderately inconvenienced is depressing. "Sure, death camps are bad but did they have to block the bridge? I'm going to be late for my brunch!" Well, the person in a camp is going to be late for stuff, too.
I've seen someone on this platform, call out people who block bridges as having a "lack of empathy because you've never had to be somewhere on time"
You're so right, how dare I make someone late for their dentist appointment. Let the genocide continue, by all means.
Which is why it's effective if coordinated and done well. It makes things relevant immediately for the public, for officials, for businesses.
It will annoy them to the point of either joining them out of frustration, or at least saying "do something!" To the government.
I have no misconceptions that they will happily massacre civilians when those orders arrive, but until those orders arrive they are only trying to intimidate. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the current orders are quite simply: "Walk and look scary."
They are clearly more afraid of us than them. They're nothing more than buzzing insects with stingers.
Non violent protests work if the alternative is violence. Otherwise they just keep sending in violent bullies to dismantle the protests.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice
There's a reason why Marsha P. Johnson is remembered.
For throwing the first fucking brick.
I remember learning about people like MLK with respect and admiration for his methods, but also being taught to not use our first Amendment Rights to stir up trouble. It was definitely a conflicting message, and probably the reason everybody today recognizes that we have an extremely serious problem, but nobody wants to start the trouble that will finally deal with it.
We won't have to, though. They want trouble, and they will have their trouble, even if they have to instigate it.
The thing is that MLK's legacy, while absolutely awesome, has been appropriated by whites and we're constantly told "he was one of the good ones". Many of MLK's false advocates will conveniently forget that he was the target of the FBI for sowing civil disobedience.
One misconception I had about civil disobedience from what I’d learned in school is that it’s a reliable means of drawing attention to your cause: your willingness to expose yourself to legal repercussions will communicate to the public how critical you consider the issue to be.
What I learned from witnessing it first-hand is that officials and the media will invent their own narratives about your actions out of whole cloth, and the statement the public thinks you’re making is subject to arbitrary filtering and distortion.
What did the nebulous "they" teach us about civil disobedience again? Because I'm not sure I ever learned that lesson in the first place 😈
IDK, in school they spent a lot of time on MLK and Gandhi, focusing on non-violence. You'd never even know that these men ever talked about anything else.
Nobody ever learns about Fred Hampton, the Haitian revolution, or Malcolm X by sticking to the curriculum.
Or the Pullman Strike, Haymarket.
Labor unions were integral to both of these movements. Students may not have learned much about labor unions in school, but the political elites sure have focused on dismantling them.
The workweek strikes in France a few years ago were entirely organized by five or so labor unions. They wanted to maintain their 35-hour work week. Can you imagine?
I was taught that the founding fathers' did not take into account a two-party political system when they designed the system of checks and balances.
They did take it into account and George Washington himself said it was a terrible idea because it would lead to exactly where we are now.
If by "take it into account" you mean they said "political parties sure are bad" then not implement anything into the system to discourage their formation, then proceed to form political parties themselves a decade or so later, then sure.
“Checks and balances” in the context of US federal government just means that each branch has the ability to check the growth of power of the others. It’s not “a lie” because it’s still true. Right now congress could, if they wanted to, impeach the president or pass laws preventing him from doing the things he wants. The SCOTUS could stop him too if they wanted to actually take up cases on the law instead of using the shadow docket to avoid making rulings.
Trump partisans hold a trifecta in government right now so they are not going to use their checks they have available to them. But one branch refusing to check another because its members were elected from the same stock of partisan lunatics is not the same as checks and balances not existing.