this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Showerthoughts
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These large conspiracy theories are always absurd because our government can't both be eminently incompetent and also full of scheming masterminds, able to keep hundreds or thousands of people from spilling secret plans. You have to pick one.
Biden effect
Ministry of Magic effect, even. With how full of idiots and bigots it is portrayed in the books, they shouldn't be able to hide from the Muggles even by spamming the memory erasure spells left and right
Overall you’re right. But there are some notable exceptions. Arguably Iran/Contra, the CIA spying on all phone calls, the Drug War. But the big one would be The Manhattan Project, since it employed literally hundreds of thousands of people.
How are they exceptions as we know about them.
Sure, years later. They flew the stealth fighter f-117a around in Nevada for 10 years before it became public knowledge. The government is simultaneously capable and incapable. Different groups have different responsibilities, different budgets, different helpers and detractors, etc.
Same thing with Trump. He is simultaneously capable and incapable. He can barely put sentences together, but has like-minded people who are less incompetent, able to push extreme policies through. And there are other groups using him as a tool as well. They don’t care about and will shove him once he’s no longer useful. But he’s very good at taking attention away from other things.
I’d say defense is one exception. That’s a huge budget with black money that disappears precisely for secret projects. It it still a secret secret if we know they’re using it to make secret things, but we just don’t know what they are yet?
I’d argue yes. And it’s still a combination of “exceedingly competent and yes still incompetent in other ways”. The intelligence is here, to paraphrase William Gibson, it’s just unevenly distributed
Actually, chronic, systemic incompetence is one of the main factors preceding fascism. It doesn't have to be deliberate to be the manifestation of any given stage of conservatism.
The mechanism of why Republicans and conservative dems work together to degrade our institutions is quite simple; greed. It doesn't take much more than that really, and they get so caught up taking turns spraying money from the corporate money hose up eachothers asses that they can't mount any meaningful resistance when the far-right metastasizes into full blown fascism.
I'm sorry, what?
What are you confused about exactly? Fascism always start on the fringe and it works its way into society because the "moderates" become complacent, fat, and greedy. In the US bribery is legal, and Democrats have become more concerned with protecting their corporate bribe scheme than protecting our democracy and stamping down fascism.
That's how it works every time -- corruption renders institutions unable to combat fascism, which is why when the take over actually happens it doesn't take a ton of force to push things over, they just push the door open and walk in.
I don't live in the US so i am kinda confused how conspiracies and interactions between opposing parties are synonimous with the development of fascism
It doesn't have to do with just the US, it's a very similar pattern wherever fascism rises. People's dissatisfaction with their corrupt and inept government is leveraged by fascist groups. It's what happened in Germany in the 20th century, in China, in Hungary etc.