If you haven’t seen them yet: Check out the “Lego Scandal” videos by Reckless Ben.

While some of his methods are certainly questionable, and he does misrepresent certain things to boost the production value, what he experiences seems to me to be indicative of the state of the entire U.S. system.

While all of this happens on a relatively small scale, his observations appear to me to be the rule rather than the exception in this country.

The latest attempt at chatcontroll was rejected as recently as April 3 mainly due to massive public opposition. They will try again, and someday they will succeed if too many people succumb to defeatism.

So it’s pretty counterproductive to say that it wouldn’t make any sense anyway, because that’s not the case.

That is precisely why regulations such as the GDPR are so important; among other things, they set limits on automated facial recognition at the European level.

As I said, these regulations are under constant attack, especially from the U.S.

Nevertheless, all is not lost here, and these regulations are indeed being enforced, since the European legal system actually still functions quite well. Here, too, it makes no sense to draw a comparison with the U.S.

Just because the U.S. system is so obviously corrupt that it can no longer fulfill its purpose doesn’t mean it’s the same in other parts of the world. U.S. billionaires have a keen interest in this, and they’re supported by the corresponding elite in Europe as well, but the world in Europe is actually quite different. While you can buy a lot of things here too, European nations are not an obvious oligarchy. The US, on the other hand, has been a de facto oligarchy for several decades. The current regime, through its utter unscrupulousness, simply makes this fact much more obvious than previous administrations did.

That is fundamentally true, yet European law and the respective national constitutions set limits on unwarranted mass surveillance. Lobbyists for tech companies—especially American ones, led by Palantir—are working tirelessly to erode these limits, thought.

Under the status quo, however, the scale of surveillance is currently in no way comparable to that in China or the U.S., as there are still legal limits in place—at least for the moment—that are also enforced, albeit only in a basic sense.

This makes it all the more important to preserve these rights and to advocate for them. It is not helpful to equate conditions in Europe with those in the US, as this creates the impression that insisting on existing law is a futile endeavor.

So Meta wants its own army of unsuspecting spies?

I can’t for the life of me imagine that this is legal. Maybe in the U.S., since the legal system there is so completely broken, but in Europe, the mass surveillance of millions of people by a private company seems likely to be a criminal offense.

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You’re right, of course, that the billionaires’ all-encompassing power—especially through digital media—makes public resistance very difficult, but I don’t think that such blatant corruption, as the U.S. regime practices it so shamelessly and, above all, so openly, would be tolerated in my home country (Germany). I mean, this is literally organized crime on a scale that’s almost beyond belief.

Corruption exists everywhere, but such blatant criminality in public office seems to me possible on this absurd scale only in the land of superlatives.

I can’t understand how this can be tolerated, especially since it has such negative consequences for the population.

The fact that U.S. authorities are actively covering up the crimes of what appear to be numerous and influential co-conspirators—by unlawfully redacting documents and withholding material they are required to release—is likely a factor. The fact that U.S. law enforcement agencies refuse to investigate this case for the same reason is another factor.

Consequently, there have been no new developments, since it is clear that the investigation has effectively been suspended, even though the case is obviously far from closed.

This in itself is, of course, a scandal that in any reasonably functioning country would inevitably lead to the government’s downfall.

But as many have already said, the media isn’t reporting on this because there is essentially no free press left in the U.S.

However, I simply cannot comprehend the fact that U.S. citizens have apparently resigned themselves to the fact that their system is so obviously corrupt that it not only fails to prevent the most serious crimes but actually enables them in the first place. To me, it is absolutely inexplicable that the current regime remains in office despite its obvious criminality and is not forced to resign through mass civil disobedience.

This regime and its network of oligarchs behind it are the reason why the most serious crimes, including those committed by Epstein’s accomplices, go unpunished.

In short: There is no longer any reporting on Epstein and his network because high-ranking members of the U.S. government are quite obviously involved themselves and are therefore doing everything in their power to suppress coverage. This, however, is only possible because U.S. citizens are not holding them accountable.

That’s frightening, but unfortunately it’s the reality.

Thank you very muc! I’m not really into jazz, but even I know these songs. It just goes to show how timeless they are—and how well-known they are, even among people who don’t know the first thing about jazz.

Aww, that’s such a classic. It seems to me that there aren’t many new, heart-felt love songs like this one anymore - not the over the top flashy ones, but rather those with a down-to-earth, relatable charm. But maybe I’m just out of the loop :)

As relevant today as ever

I’ll definitely do that—just like Blur’s “Song 2”

I don’t think I ever knew the name of this song, even though everyone knows it, of course. Thank you so much!

Aww, thank you very much for this comment, which not only has “time” in the title but is actually pretty timeless, beyond any meme value. Jim Croce even has several songs that have outlived his generation, such as “I Got a Name.” Those are exactly the songs I was referring to - the ones that, decades later, continue to reach new audiences through movie soundtracks and such.

Yeah, sure, but I get the impression that these people are rarely referred to as such. Then again, maybe that’s just my impression.

Just today I had a meeting with a whole delegation of management consultants: three highly paid people, and they all kept throwing out one buzzword after another. When I asked for clarification or rather for detail, however, it quickly became clear that not a single one of them had even a basic understanding of what they were talking about.

What else is there to say? This statement is correct: religion has always been misused for political purposes - that’s what the sentence says, not that religion itself is always misused; that’s your interpretation.

Besides, if you’d read a little further, you probably would have figured out what I’m trying to say.

You’re reading into my statement that it somehow implies I’m making some kind of fundamental claim about religion here. I’m sorry, but it’s simply a fact that religion is being misused for political purposes. I can’t help it if you’re turning that into a fundamental claim that isn’t there at all.

What makes you think I’m not fully aware of that?

I’m talking about the dangers of exploiting religion, which remains one of humanity’s most serious problems, as is currently and undeniably illustrated by the monstrous regimes in the U.S. and Israel, for example.

I never said that religion should be rejected outright or that it cannot also do good.

I don’t understand how you came to that conclusion.

Religion certainly plays a regulatory role within society - historically, for a very, very long time. It also promotes values such as charity, empathy, and humility as virtues. The problem, unfortunately, is that this system of order is frequently abused in practice - just like the legal system, whose guidelines are often derived from religious values. So it is not religion itself that is the problem, but the way it is abused.

A good example of this is the ultra-conservative Christians in the U.S.: Since this ideology is being exploited politically to promote a ruthless form of hyper-capitalism that serves only a tiny elite, there is no room for values such as humanity and empathy, which the Bible clearly prescribes as positive values. Thus, inhuman policies are legitimized in the name of God and Jesus, though only those aspects of religion that enable the propagation of “in-groups” and “out-groups” are utilized. On the one hand, this serves to convey a sense of community, and on the other, to deny all rights -including the right to exist - to anyone who does not belong. Of course, this could no longer be reconciled with Christian ethics, but since this is not about ethics but about power, these schizophrenic movements are nevertheless very successful.

This logic is present in nearly all forms of religious extremism - from ultra-Christians to fanatical Muslims and Jews to Hindus and so on. These fundamentalist movements always have one thing in common: they are not interested in good, peaceful coexistence, but solely in the dominance of one group over another, which is because they are political movements whose leaders use religion merely as a means of power to legitimize their inhumane ideology.

But please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here: It is not religion itself that is the problem, but the way it is abused to pit people against one another and distract them from who actually benefits from the corresponding policies.

This effect is by no means limited to religion: the same can be achieved, for example, by emphasizing nationality - in this case, concepts such as “foreign infiltration” serve as a backdrop of fear, so that the corresponding out-group can be denied basic rights, even their humanity.

Religion is, and always has been, a tool used by those in power to legitimize the status quo.

Its primary purpose is to shift responsibility for actions onto fate and thus divert attention from the fact that it is people who are responsible for these actions. In this way, even the most unfair and exploitative conditions can still be portrayed as just: the king by the grace of God, the kingdom of heaven that awaits the patient after death, hell that punishes the greedy, making it unnecessary to hold them accountable in this life, and so on.

This also works in reverse to strip people of the self-confidence that they can achieve things through their own efforts: Thank God for the food he has put on the table, for your success, and for everything else, because he has given it to you in his infinite generosity - don’t even think of making demands.

In this sense, religion provides a justification for hierarchies in society. It cements the status quo in the interests of the powerful.

Hence: People who do not question this narrative - which serves their own exploitation - but have made it the purpose of their lives are quite strange, because they are thereby harming themselves.