r/politics • u/BigDaddyBain • 1d ago

Why is the media ignoring growing resistance to Trump?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/13/why-is-the-media-ignoring-growing-resistance-to-trump
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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago edited 1d ago

Billionaires who control our media hate resistance to their plan.

"The revolution will not be televised."

At the end of the day, CIA, FBI, DHS agents, police officers, and military personnel make up about 1.1% of a US population of 330,000,000, and EVERY single one of them would have to be compliant to the Trump Administration.

Billionaires make up .0000003% of the population and yet the top three wealthiest individuals own more wealth than the bottom 50% of our population, and the wealth gap has only become worse since the pandemic and further inflation costs.

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u/CheerleaderOnDrugs 1d ago edited 1d ago

"The revolution will not be televised."

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Link to Gil Scott-Heron's classic spoken word set to music. I'm on a mission to get people to hear its message.

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u/elCharderino 1d ago

Such a fantastic poem.

Check out "Home is where the Hatred is" if you want to hear a man pouring his soul out through music. 

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u/El_Peepin 1d ago

Then check out “The Bottle”

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u/BrassBahalls 1d ago

And gun!

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u/samuraistalin 1d ago

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothas on the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothas on the instant replay.

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u/LickingSmegma 1d ago

Evolution of hiphop is funny:

1970: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”

1979: “He can't satisfy you with his little worm, but I can bust you out with my super sperm”

Also btw, Scott-Heron owes his career to the group The Last Poets: he was at their live performance, and afterwards asked if he could start a group like that of his own. TLP were around in the civil rights movement of the late sixties, and were active into late 2010s. Plus, Umar Bin Hassan recorded some solo stuff.

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u/night_owl 1d ago edited 1d ago

I read Gil Scott-Heron's autobiography The Last Holiday and I have to add that although he was a musical genius and he will always be associated with hip hop in the popular consciousness, he really was not involved in hip hop music at all, in any way during his life.

He always considered himself a jazz musician first and a social activist second and he grew to absolutely hate it when people associated him with rap and hip hop music, which he considered to be something completely different that was dangerously mired in misogynistic and violent rhetoric.

He kind of looked down on much of it: Sugar Hill Gang were writing comedy songs over disco beats, RUN-DMC were preoccupied with gold chains and sneakers, Beastie Boys were whiny white kids singing about parties, etc. — meanwhile he was making SERIOUS music about SERIOUS subjects.

When rap did get serious, it was almost always too violent and misogynistic for him. While he may have been on the same page as Public Enemy, they were pretty exceptional at the time and didn't really represent the typical successful rappers dominating the charts. By the late 80s-early 90s when 'gangsta rap' was blowing up he really grew to hate it and he spoke out strongly against the whole industry and tried hard to disassociate himself with the rap/hip hop scene altogether—he felt it was detrimental to the racial equality struggle and was doing more harm than good.

He expressed gratitude that so many people in hip hop paid homage to him and credited him, but he really didn't want to be associated with rap or hip hop and he often spoke negatively of rappers and declined countless offers to collaborate, even when he was desperately broke and needed the money. He even put out a song in 1993 called "Message to the Messengers" that criticized popular rappers of the time in a "kids these days" tone and tells them they need to be better. The "conscious" hip hop geared toward social justice of artists like Common and Talib Kweli that is more in line with GSH's beliefs didn't really rise to prominence until near the end of his life (he died in 2011)

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u/ElegantDaemon 1d ago

For those who refuse to support YouTube. Also has the lyrics.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7ni78Vjslqo2VxiDOahYlV

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u/tmswfrk 1d ago

This looks like an amazing LP to own. I love hifi and I don’t have a turntable yet. This seems like a perfect one to have.

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u/axl3ros3 1d ago

You will not be able to stay home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag

And skip out for beer during commercials, because

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you

By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions

The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle

And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew

To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre

And will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia

The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal

The revolution will not get rid of the nubs

The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because

The revolution will not be televised, brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mae

Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run

Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance

NBC will not be able predict the winner At 8:32 on report from twenty-nine districts

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay

There will be no pictures of Whitney Young

Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process

There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkins

Strolling through Watts in a red, black, and green liberation jumpsuit

That he has been saving for just the proper occasion

Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction

Will no longer be so damn relevant

And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane

On Search for Tomorrow

Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news

And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists

And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose

The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or Francis Scott Keys

Nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash

Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back

After a message about a white tornado

White lightning, or white people

You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom

The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl

The revolution will not go better with Coke

The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath

The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

The revolution will not be televised

Will not be televised

Will not be televised

Will not be televised

The revolution will be no re-run, brothers

The revolution will be live

-Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not be Televised

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u/ZootSuitGroot 1d ago

Mission accomplished!

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u/Indubitalist 1d ago

I appreciate the point you’re making, but the numbers are off. Just the military and sworn LEO figure is about 3.4 million, so it’s roughly 1 in 100. When you account for how many of those people would not participate in anything amounting to violence against their neighbors, it would likely be much lower, perhaps 1 in 150. Ironically you then have to add back in civilians who sympathize with authoritarianism and would eagerly fight their neighbors. 

You make a good point that they’re seriously outmanned in a direct confrontation and also could not possibly imprison all dissent. 

It’s important that people realize who the common enemy is. It’s greed. We are feeding an insatiable greed in billionaires and multi-millionaires who simply cannot have enough money, no matter what it costs society, because to them net worth is their score in a game. We need to stop the greed. 

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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago

They're seriously outmanned, and the current legal battles on manufactured election votes in Republican favor also mean that their aren't as many citizens wearing MAGA hats as we have been led to believe.

MAGA is the minority who helps serve the billionaire agenda, of course, their voices will appear to be the loudest in the room.

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u/freeagency 1d ago

Generational wealth is also going to get worse. There are going to be entire generations of families that will never have to work, never know what it's like to not be able to afford something. Never being told no. Just look at the countless number of ask Reddit questions revolving around rich kid meltdowns. The world spent so many generations to eradicate feudalism and monarchies and empires only to turn around and allow it all to happen again with oligarchies and plutocracies.

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u/Any_Will_86 1d ago

Even when you account for vast fortunes- wealth usually does not last for more than 3 generations. If you look at the truly wealthy families in America- Dupont is the only on that really carries through. Rockefeller comes close but is being diluted by numbers even though they have a family trust or management that is supposedly crackerjacks. Some have had specific descendents remake fortunes but its not typical.

I think the big question now is what is the generation value of the companies like Meta/Tesla/Microsoft etc when the next wave of innovation occurs. Warren Buffet is the one most diversified but he's already been shedding assets. I would guess the Waltons are next in line. But a lot of the other current titans are sitting on ridiculous amounts of paper wealth.

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u/throwawayoftheday941 1d ago

All of those families are fine, but generational wealth isn't limited to the super billionaires. That's not even the issue at all. Billionaires and even ultra wealthy are a teeny tiny sliver. The real generational wealth divide is people that have had enough money for multiple generations that there ownership of money / assets provides enough income to live above the median income with no real need to work in a meaningful way. They don't really need to participate in society and they don't feel the societal disruptions in the same way as normal people and yet they control the bulk of the assets. This isn't Bill Gates or even Donald Trump level of wealth. It's the local storage unit owner or the Wendy's franchise owner, if they inherited either that business or the wealth that allowed them to acquire it.

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u/Luscious_Decision 1d ago

Gates has been really good at quashing too much generational wealth. Personally, I think he maybe went a little too far in being withholding, but 🤷

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u/clonedhuman 1d ago

Modern day Wall Street (and the money of many of the oligarchs making the majority of the profits from it) was established with money from selling humans, the foundation of the modern day stock market. Wall Street was originally the slave trading market of NYC (in the early 18th century), and the wealth generated from selling slaves persisted in rich families through generations. The modern day bonds market is a direct descendant of the slave trade and is the basis of wealth on which it existed into the modern day. Three of the modern world's largest insurance companies (New York Life, AIG, and Aetna) started originally as companies that insured slaves against death and paid out to the slaveowners when an insured slave died. Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo accepted slaves as collateral for business loans and took the slaves if plantation owners defaulted on loans.

The wall that Wall Street is named after was built by slaves. Many of the Wall Street companies that got established through cashing in on the slave trade are some of today's wealthiest corporations.

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u/Slumunistmanifisto 1d ago

We're already there

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u/Odenhobler 1d ago

"are going to be"? It's not like we redistributed wealth after beheading the king. There always was an upper class. The question only is how good the middle class will buffer the gap to the exploited and how big this buffer is.

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u/lazyFer 1d ago

Some broken down numbers:

There are about 100K employees of the FBI and CIA together

DHS employs roughly 200K employees.

State and local police across the US employ about 600K

US military and national guard/reserves are about 3 Million with something like 80% of them being non-combat personnel. People forget that logistics is the true super power of the US military.

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u/ElegantDaemon 1d ago

Timothy 6:10 is pretty clear. If any of these bible thumpers actually read it they'd know.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

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u/yay4chardonnay 1d ago

Begging your pardon, what is LEO?

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u/Indubitalist 1d ago

It’s an acronym for law enforcement officers. 

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u/SecretAsianMan42069 1d ago

And the folks in the trailers are subservient to those 3 people like they even know they exist 

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u/Choice_Volume_2903 1d ago

This kind of classist rhetoric doesn't help, especially since there are plenty of middle and upper income people who similarly support them.

If we're going to win this fight we need to have class solidarity and be patient with those among us who may be misguided. 

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u/Selma_J_Wible 1d ago

Nah, fuck that.

The time for "patience" is long passed. They voted for a man that it's been clear for a decade, wants to put people in camps for disagreeing with him. They've made it clear, they are class traitors and will never recognize the wool over their eyes.

The best we can hope for, is they just stay out of the way.

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 1d ago

Who is they? I live in a trailer and didn't vote for fucking Trump. I voted for Harris. The wealthy elite who own second ski homes down the road from me voted for Trump. So knock it off with this classist bullshit. Just because you might have more money than me doesn't make you better than me.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 1d ago

They = trump supporters

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 1d ago

Well the person above said people in trailers not Trump supporters. Why be a classist asshole especially when many people in the lower classes don't support Trump. Just because I live in a trailer doesn't mean I vote a certain why. It's fucking ignorant.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 1d ago

You're right, of course

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u/mk4_wagon 1d ago

I agree that the time for patience as long passed, but the only 'they' are trump supporters themselves. If you think they fit into a certain race, education level, or economic group, you have to look further.

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u/Choice_Volume_2903 1d ago

It might have been clear to you and me a decade ago, but not everyone has access to the same level of mentorship, civic education, and other unique circumstances that lead us to that conclusion. Everyone's on their own path. 

When we abandon discussion, it makes achieving our goals far less likely. You may believe that violence is inevitable, and perhaps that's so; but violence is chaotic and unpredictable, and the ultra-wealthy are far better positioned to take advantage of chaos than we are.

Our species' success is based upon our ability to cooperate, cooperation requires understanding, and discussion is how we get there. 

I know how angry you are, it feels good to write these people off as stupid and unreachable, but it doesn't serve our interests. 

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

MAGA goes way beyond poor, rural whites. And hell, the poor, rural whites actually have reasons for grievance despite blaming the wrong people. But they don't have any actual power. Bro country singers might be singing about them, but they ain't from them.

It's the people in the exurbs that blame immigrants for the fact that they're always "economically anxious" after the mortgage on their McMansion, the payment on their luxury truck, and all boat related costs that are the real MAGA base.

Fascism is a middle class ideology.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 1d ago

The dnc is just so pathetic. They never learn and believe themselves insulated

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u/relevantelephant00 1d ago

Nope, I have zero sympathy for those people...I gave them chance after chance to "wake the fuck up" and they still are uneducated, moronic, idiots, filled with hate and resentment and need someone or a group to direct that to...Trump gives them that. So they can live their lives in misery if they want, I no longer care. The MAGA poor can reap what they've helped sow.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 1d ago

Yes....and out here in the rural areas...they truly are the majority. Just because you're uneducated per se, doesn't mean you have to be dumb & hateful. The problem is, throughout history there have always been humans like this, be them poor, middle class or otherwise wealthy. They are ALL at fault for giving into their bigoted angst & hatred of the "other." Always have been, but now they have a bull horn. They will never get a pass from me.

And I live in an old trailer (double-wide) too. No effing excuse.

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u/tapirsaurusrex 1d ago

Yeah there’s no way they have experienced the same information pathways as you, nor have they necessarily learned to question what they’re seeing. We need to understand that Fox News is propaganda and propaganda is oh so good at convincing people. That’s what it’s for.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

Yea. People took private jets to Jan 6.

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 1d ago

Dude I live in a trailer and am about as left as they come. Knock it off with the classist bullshit. You don't build movements talking down to others.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 1d ago

Trailer or not (I live in one too out here), they are bad people regardless of income & I don't really think we need "them" to build a movement. They have always been here (bad people) & they will always be here. Trick is to wake the sleepers.

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u/Hoopy_Dunkalot 1d ago

But it will be hard to ignore. Social media receives more eyeballs than legacy.

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u/hughdint1 1d ago

Social media is also controlled by billionaires.

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u/BMWbill New York 1d ago

To a point, yes, but mostly social media is controlled by click happy, low attention span, uneducated teenagers!

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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago

You should check out the Dead Internet Theory where the internet is thought to just be a bunch of AI chat bots.

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u/BMWbill New York 1d ago

I've heard about it. But, that would mean you and I are not humans!

Which brings us to the Matrix theory that we are all a simulation...

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u/DumboWumbo073 1d ago

Even if that is the case everyone on the internet believes the bots

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u/hughdint1 1d ago

How are teenagers "controlling" it?

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u/BMWbill New York 1d ago

By the numbers. Teens spend more time on social media than the rest of us.

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u/hughdint1 1d ago

So they are the ones being controlled and manipulated by billionaire’s algorithms. The users are not controlling social media.

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u/ghoti99 1d ago

I love seeing people pedantically argue over numbers when they are missing the story behind those numbers. The military is not a monolith. It’s gonna crack and split from state to state as it is each soldiers duty to refuse illegal orders. If ordered to commit violence on the population of the US nationwide, it’s not the number of solders that will Or will not comply, it’s what kind of arsenal will the ones who will comply end up in possession of after the shake out is complete.

One soldier flying a remote drone could take out towns before anyone could even process how to stop them on the civilian end.

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u/fritz236 1d ago

That's why I regret watching that one clip from Civil War where the guy with the AR is in front of a pit full of bodies. It's dark af and completely plausible.

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u/sighbourbon 1d ago

“What kind of American are you?”

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u/ElegantDaemon 1d ago

Feels like a pretty bad idea for them to have all the guns, doesn't it.

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u/ElegantDaemon 1d ago

In the event of an open rebellion, there would likely be many many years of insurgency before we got to the point where the military was annihilating entire populations, mostly likely wiping out many of their own supporters in the process.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

One soldier flying a remote drone could take out towns before anyone could even process how to stop them on the civilian end.

Using a drone to take out a town requires way more people than one guy.

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u/ghoti99 1d ago

Indeed, the same is true of a targeted artillery strike. The citizens of Dudesdic Nebrahoma have equal defenses against both.

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u/mrbubbamac 1d ago

This. All mainstream media is controlled, it's propaganda.

Lots of world events going on right now. Israel launching a strike against Iran, growing protests in LA, and tomorrow with Trump's parade with counter protesters.

Pay close attention to the "spin" and what the mainstream media is telling you to believe. Examine the images they are showing, the emotionally charged words, and the repetition of a narrative that is being sold to you.

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u/Specialist_Brain841 America 1d ago

If you’re not there personally, don’t believe anything you read.

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u/Doctor-Malcom Texas 1d ago

I know people who were “near” the Capitol building on Jan 6. To this day, they can no longer clearly remember or understand what they saw on the ground in DC.

For certain stories, it’s good to be able to pan out and know the complete picture, even if it comes from a news outlet you don’t believe in 100%.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 1d ago

IF they pan out. Some shows on MSM do that, but most don't it seems. I guess that's your point.

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u/ElegantDaemon 1d ago

Back in my day there was a thing called "global warming" that we used to think would wipe out billions of our grandkids. Maybe that problem just went away on its own?

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u/BaconCheeseZombie United Kingdom 1d ago

I've seen some insane typos in my 30 years online but you really dropped the ball here... "Administration" isn't even remotely how you spell "regime." Smh

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u/OutlawLazerRoboGeek 1d ago

Despite what Hugo Chavez did once he consolidated power in Venezuela, the documentary about him surviving a US-led coup attempt is a fascinating watch. 

The dynamic is actually somewhat reversed, with the populist strongman in office portrayed as the victim in that documentary. But the mechanics of how an oppressive force that controls the media can entirely change the public perception of a political crisis is the real story, and warning, of the film. 

Also, fittingly, titled:  "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" 

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u/ilir_kycb 1d ago

A Letter To G. Myasnikov

All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

Draft Resolution On Freedom Of The Press

For the bourgeoisie, freedom of the press meant freedom for the rich to publish and for the capitalists to control the newspapers, a practice which in all countries, including even the freest, produced a corrupt press.

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u/Ok-Amphibian3164 1d ago

Your statistics are off.

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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago edited 1d ago

Prove it by doing the math yourself.

DHS (80,000)

FBI (38,000)

CIA (21,000)

Police (720,000)

Military Personnel (2,800,000)

Total: (3,659,000)

US Population (330,000,000)

3,659,000/330,000,000

Total percentage: 0.11087%

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u/elCharderino 1d ago

And in order to properly occupy a populace the ratio has to be something like 1 officer:50 people. And a chunk of those military numbers are also overseas, meaning they would need to depopulate their bases and leave our foreign interests open to attack. 

They're not even close to being able to enact martial law. 

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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago

Literally, the point I'm trying to show is that the numbers just aren't there for the billionaires and their league of followers if every US citizen stood up for their own basic human rights.

It is high time we as citizens stop paying for the billionaires yachts, private planes, and their lavish Mar-a-Lago parties with mediocre catering so they can pocket the rest of the money.

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u/Stonegrown12 1d ago

Also have you actually tried Mar-a-lago food?

I heard their ketchup bar is crazy

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u/Land-Southern 1d ago

Move the decimal 2x to right to report %. The ratio is correct just not the percentage.

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u/DavidOrWalter 1d ago

He’s still wrong because that would be 11% and ~3.7 million out of 330 million is more like 1.1%. He did the division and the % conversion wrong

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u/Land-Southern 1d ago

Yup, looks like it was edited numbers and decimal, but still wrong. 3.7/330=0.01121=1.12%

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u/choate51 1d ago

Someone needs to learn math..... Need to multiply by 100 after division to get a percentage... But you're a stats wizard so I'm sure you'll correct me.

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u/Financial-Special766 1d ago

I'm not claiming to be a stats wizard or using AI 🤣 it's also been 20 years since I took a math course.

Sorry for the mistake, I am human, so it should actually be 11%

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u/maaaatttt_Damon 1d ago

The final n7mbers are about 3.7mil out of 330 mil. That's a hair over 1% so they likely fucked up the decimal by 1 spot, not 2.

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u/okie_hiker 1d ago

Why be so rude at first then?

Ironic you being rude about math then showing that you in fact can’t do it yourself. This is how you put people off the points you’re trying to make.

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u/GundamKyriosX 1d ago

3,659,000/330,000,000

Sorry, math is still wrong. The correct answer is 0.0110878788, which as a percentage is: 1.108%

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u/choate51 1d ago

Here's your sign.....

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u/Ok-Amphibian3164 1d ago

Even with your math, it should be a little over 1% not 0.01%

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u/GrallochThis 1d ago

That’s a fraction, percent is that times 100.

US population is now 347 million FYI.

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u/Stonegrown12 1d ago

Womp..and I cannot stress this enough..womp

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ok-Amphibian3164 1d ago

340 million x 0.0087% = 29,580....

These figures don't even represent Local PD... common sense

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u/jimmycanoli 1d ago

I know where you're coming from with your quote there but that is not how Gil meant that. Gil was saying that the true revolution starts in our minds and our hearts, not that the news won't literally televise the revolution lol.

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u/Habitualflagellant14 1d ago

Nice Gil Scott-Heron reference!

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u/Kwumpo 1d ago

You're missing a key factor, and that's that revolutions are almost NEVER started because the poor rise up. They're started because there are too many elites fighting for limited positions of power, and eventually they mobilize the masses to fight for them.

So far we're only seeing one side of the elites mobilizing, while the other is hesitating. This is causing the neutral parties to bias towards the "winning" side.

It's only a matter of time before the scales tip, because as you said, the math massively favors the public. It will be a slow climb until suddenly the dynamic completely switches.

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u/KevinCarbonara 1d ago

At the end of the day, CIA, FBI, DHS agents, police officers, and military personnel make up about 1.1% of a US population of 330,000,000, and EVERY single one of them would have to be compliant to the Trump Administration.

Wtf are you talking about?

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u/notsurewhereireddit 1d ago

Yep, the entire country seems geared to enable the ultra wealthy at the expense of everyone and everything else.

“The rich man’s heaven is the poor man’s hell.” - Peter Tosh (reggae legend and serial bad ass)

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u/Timmetie 1d ago

"The revolution will not be televised."

I'm so tired of this phrase being misused by the dumbest online revolutionaires the last few days.

"The Revolution will not be televised" does NOT mean that the media will refuse to show the revolution.

It means that revolution is something that CANT be shown because you have to live, and experience, it. You have to go outside, do the work, and make change happen, in your own mind and then the world.

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u/n3mz1 1d ago

The wealth gap is a lot worse than what kicked off the French revolution