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.

This doesn’t baffle anyone at all. On the contrary. It was entirely to be expected, given all the AIPAC money Israel uses to bribe politicians.

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.

I think it would certainly be appropriate to socially isolate all these people so that they might finally realize what atrocities they are committing, since they themselves don’t seem to realize what crimes they are complicit in.

Even the murder of 120 children still doesn’t seem terrible enough for these monsters to see the light.

They are terrible people, and that is why they deserve nothing but contempt, for they have more than earned it.

Unfortunately, it cannot be said often enough: none of the guilty parties will ever be held accountable unless U.S. citizens finally stand up for the victims and for themselves.

The U.S. legal system is a farce, rotten to the core, as this particularly repugnant case - and many others - demonstrates.

This system will never reform itself - not even under a Democratic administration, assuming elections are even held anymore.

There is no alternative but to accept the hardships of resistance if justice and a halfway decent life are ever to be possible in the richest country in the world.

My point is that US citizens could remove their criminal president, but they don’t do so despite all his criminal machinations and despite the most serious war crimes.

Unfortunately, I don’t see it that way. I’ve found time and again that even US citizens in the Fediverse tend to display a massive amount of completely misplaced, naive national pride.

It seems to me that even those here, due to the oligarchy in the US that controls the media, are massively misinformed or uninformed despite their flirtation with free media.

Added to this is decades of propaganda that Americans apparently cannot overcome even here.

The best example is this post: Instead of the all-too-necessary self-criticism, there are only excuses - even though the U.S. president is a pedophile and a serious criminal. Nevertheless, U.S. citizens act as if that were not the reality.

As I said, that’s true, of course, but the question is how long it will remain that way. I can hardly see any difference already, and I don’t see how things in the US are going to get better.

The only possibility, in my opinion, is for the people to rise up and overthrow this blatantly corrupt system. They still have the chance to do so at the moment, as the authoritarian regime with its secret police loyal to no one but the organge godfather (in the form of ICE with a budget that compares to the military spendings of a medium sized country) is still in the process of being fully established.

To be honest, however, I have little hope that the American people will do this - yes, there are massive protests, but there are no signs of a nationwide, organized general strike that could bring the regime to its knees. I don’t think these ruthless criminals will be impressed by anything else, because they hold all the cards.

Yes, that may be true for now, but the US regime is currently obviously working to change that - and fast.

I mean, masked fascist thugs are randomly kidnapping and even murdering people in broad daylight, and the highest law enforcement authorities are not only protecting pedophiles, but are also clearly enabling their decades of monstrous deeds in the first place. This has nothing to do with even a halfway functioning system, especially since the US government is trampling on the law as if it was beneath them - they just don’t care anymore because no one is stopping them. This is evident in the fact that even the most heinous crimes do not result in any consequences for those responsible - and this has been the case for quite some time in the US as well.

None of this is even remotely compatible with a democratic constitution.

I would say that mafia state and oligarchy are roughly synonymous.

The difference lies more in the perception of a given country: Russia is an oligarchy because all power is in the hands of a few. It is seen as a mafia state because Russia has a horrible reputation on the world stage, which is why those in power have a reputation for enriching themselves out of pure greed. Of course they do, but so do despots in other oligarchic countries - only here it is sometimes still considered legitimate state action, even if it, in fact, only benefits a powerful elite.

In contrast, a plutocracy is also an oligarchy, but a special case of it, since wealth is the main source of power for the elite who control the country.

However, now that the US elite is apparently replacing it’s sham democracy with autocratic tyranny, as in Russia, the US is also increasingly becoming an oligarchy in the sense of a dictatorship.

I think it is undisputed that both Russia and the US are led by serious criminals, by a mafia, which, however, has so far only been referred to as such in Russia.

But since the US regime apparently no longer has any scruples about openly committing the most depraved crimes and - like Putin’s crew - shamelessly enriching itself, the US’s international reputation will also rapidly deteriorate, as is already the case.

Today, you will hardly find many people in any country of the world who still believe anything the White House says, given the obvious lies coming out of there.

In short, both countries are mafia states, but the US is so powerful that the oligarchs here are much more dangerous because of their disproportionately greater influence on other countries.

Yes, Russia is an oligarchy, no question, but the country is nowhere near as powerful as the US with its excessively inflated military apparatus … hence the question: Should the US be called a super-oligarchy, now that the country’s elite, who are actually its most degenerate citizens, is obviously no longer satisfied with the plutocracy that has long been the norm there?

It’s truly open mob rule in the States … a superpower under the control of serious criminals. What do you call that, actually?

I mean, organized crime probably hasn’t existed in at least fifty years with such blatant, unpunished audacity and probably not with such an outrageous level of twisted depravity either. I’m not sure if the monsters of the world have ever been so powerful since the end of World War II.

So what would be a fitting term for today’s US?

Super-oligarchy? Orange Mega-MAGA-Mafia-Nation?

Was it already the case before MAGA that it was completely normal for the highest law enforcement authorities in the US to blatantly lie and completely disregard the law, even breaking it themselves on a regular basis, even in high-profile cases?

As a European, I am now so used to the fact that absolutely nothing the White House communicates is even remotely true that it seems like the normal state of affairs in the US.

Is it just particularly extreme with this criminal mafia regime, or was it already common practice before?

This is bad news for the Republicans, because all this hatred is intended to distract attention from how shamelessly the elite is enriching itself at the expense of the country - and also from other crimes, such as those documented in the Epstein files.

If their voters also realize that hatred of foreigners and the wars waged by the regime are one and the same thing, they will really have a lot to explain…

“Impeachment plans ramp up,” “Democrats threaten legal action,” “X slammed for Y” … the consequences would certainly be devastating, if there were any …

Yes, under this regime, the US is no longer a constitutional state. And that is why I believe it is impossible to remove the regime by constitutional means. Some people point to the midterms and say that the president will then be a lame duck. That applies to presidents who abide by the law, but not to one who has no scruples whatsoever. Waiting to see what happens will only give the orange child molester more time.

The answer is clear: the regime does not abide by laws or court rulings - the US has now abandoned even the appearance of being a constitutional state. If US citizens have a problem with this, they should rise up against all the corruption and all the crimes. However, since they are not doing so, we will continue to read news stories like this.

There is a term for countries where corrupt, criminal regimes can do whatever they want and the wealthy elites can indulge their degenerate desires: banana republics.

Yes, that’s clear. I didn’t mean to imply that anyone here is getting paid, except for the operators of instances and Foss developers—and they presumably get far too little for their efforts.

Yes, ads would be unavoidable, but there would be the possibility of distributing the revenue more fairly. Otherwise, the only option would be to accept donations to accounts, but no one would likely use that. I’ll say it again: ads are not an option in the Fediverse, not even in a transparent way, and not even though ads not only finance the internet, but have also traditionally been a major source of funding for things like quality journalism (subscriptions have never been the main source of income here). Nevertheless, it remains a fact that good content costs time and skill, and therefore usually money. Without monetization methods, there will always be a shortage of content that is more than just reposts from elsewhere. So it seems to me to be an unsolvable problem. But of course, I also completely understand why the Fediverse fundamentally rejects monetization—at least in the form of ads.