A very interesting documentary that shows how austerity fucks up the economy and a country in the end. It's about the UK, but could be about Belgium, too.
#economy #documentary #essay #austerity #politics #neoliberalism #destruction #stupidity #enrichment
"[Trump] said he 'couldn’t care less' if automakers raised prices after he announced he would impose 25% tariffs on all foreign-made automobiles. …
When pressed if he told CEOs not to raise prices, as reported in the The Wall Street Journal, Trump added, 'No, I never said that. I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars.'”
~ NBC
#Trump #stupidity #incompetence #destruction #tariffs #economy #cars
/3
"I don’t want to minimize the cruelty or pain being inflicted by Trump and his cronies, but this week has also revealed a foolishness — a mindless obtuseness — in Trump and this regime that defies belief.
These people know zilch about governing, which is both laughable and terrifying."
~ Robert Reich
"Stupidity about vaccines is both too damned close and traveling at the speed of light. We're going to have to be faster. ...
How are we going to escape this stupidity? I don’t know, but you can protect yourself from some of the damage by making sure your vaccinations are up to date. Make sure your friends and family are up to date as well."
~ Rayne
#measles #vaccines #vaccination #RFKJr #stupidity #disinformation
/1
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/30/reaching-velocity-to-escape-anti-vax-stupidity/
My sincere thanks to everybody who voted for Trump, against all advice. Great job!
#trump #donaldtrump #jdvance #darkenlightenment
#gop #stupid #stupidity #stupidisasstupiddoes #blind #moron #potus #votus #recession #dowjones #tankingcountry #freedom #migration #idiot #irony
![Heather Cox Richardson Unqualified Activist David Grier to Study Vaccines and Autism
3/28/25
On Tuesday, news broke that Kennedy has tapped anti-vaccine activist David Geier to lead a study looking to link autism to vaccines, although that alleged link has been heavily studied and thoroughly debunked. Infectious disease journalist Helen Branswell notes that Geier does not have a medical degree and was disciplined in Maryland for practicing medicine without a license. British investigative journalist Brian Deer, who has written about the hoax that vaccines cause autism, told Branswell: “If you want an independent source,... [you] wouldn’t go to somebody with no qualifications and a long track record of impropriety and incompetence.” But, he said, “[i]f you wanted to get in anybody off the street who would come up with the result that Kennedy would like to see, this would be your man.”](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/246/175/088/947/918/original/6752bfc60f6f7bbe.jpeg "Heather Cox Richardson Unqualified Activist David Grier to Study Vaccines and Autism
3/28/25
On Tuesday, news broke that Kennedy has tapped anti-vaccine activist David Geier to lead a study looking to link autism to vaccines, although that alleged link has been heavily studied and thoroughly debunked. Infectious disease journalist Helen Branswell notes that Geier does not have a medical degree and was disciplined in Maryland for practicing medicine without a license. British investigative journalist Brian Deer, who has written about the hoax that vaccines cause autism, told Branswell: “If you want an independent source,... [you] wouldn’t go to somebody with no qualifications and a long track record of impropriety and incompetence.” But, he said, “[i]f you wanted to get in anybody off the street who would come up with the result that Kennedy would like to see, this would be your man.”")
When #DietrichBonhoeffer, a German Pastor, Theorized How #Stupidity Enabled the Rise of the #Nazis (1942)
in History, Politics | March 26th, 2025
"Two days after Adolf #Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer took to the airwaves. Before his radio broadcast was cut off, he warned his countrymen that their führer could well be a verführer, or misleader. Bonhoeffer’s anti-Nazism lasted until the end of his life in 1945, when he was executed by the regime for association with the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Even while imprisoned, he kept thinking about the origins of the political mania that had overtaken Germany. The force of central importance to Hitler’s rise was not evil, he concluded, but stupidity.
"'Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice,' Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter to his co-conspirators on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship. 'One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.' When provoked, 'the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.'
"Fighting stupidity, to Bonhoeffer’s mind, first necessitates understanding it. 'In essence not an intellectual defect but a human one,' stupidity can descend upon practically anyone: 'under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.' And it happens most noticeably when a particular figure or movement seizes the attention of the public. 'Every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity,' he writes. Since such phenomena could hardly arise without blindly obedient masses, it seems that 'the power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.'
"You can see Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity explained in the illustrated Sprouts video above, and you can learn more about the man himself from the documentary Bonhoeffer. Or, better yet, read his collection, Letters and Papers from Prison. Though rooted in his time, culture, and religion, his thought remains relevant wherever humans follow the crowd. 'The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent,' he writes, which held as true in the public squares of wartime Europe as it does on the social-media platforms of today. 'In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him.' Whatever would surprise Bonhoeffer about our time, he would know exactly what we mean when we call stupid people 'tools.'"
https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/when-dietrich-bonhoeffer-a-german-pastor-theorized-how-stupidity-enabled-the-rise-of-the-nazis-1942.html
#Histodon #History #USPol #WorldPol #Fascism #Authoritarianism #BalladOfTheLittleMan
An opinion piece. But IMHO (as goodd as this) we all know that Westminster Ministers typically only think of their own advantages - now and in the future. Others who will not benefit them are only of interest if it might effect their votes (and earning potential)
#HillaryClinton NYT OpEd
#GiftArticle
It’s not the #hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the #stupidity. We’re all shocked—shocked!—that Pres Trump & his team don’t actually care about protecting #classified info or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top #Trump admin ofcls put our troops in jeopardy by sharing #military plans on a commercial messaging app & unwittingly invited a journalist….That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/opinion/trump-hegseth-signal-chat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7U4.YDTF.6jDHlFATvf_h&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
When we complain about #signalgate , dream territory annexations, nightmare tariffs, etc.. to the 80 million stupid who elected these clowns, we belong to some alien, unamerican, too intellectual, liberal, woke, culture. The mass of stupid deplorables only laughs and mocks. At the end, our task in life is to figure out what to do with the rabble of 80 million (more or less) who are well willing to quickly turn this place into a rotten sh!thole of a country... #stupidity #ethics #crisis #ageofstupidity
"But scratch the surface of this bluster and it quickly becomes clear that Trump’s ideas about tariffs and their alleged benefits are a combination of confused and baseless."
"At the White House yesterday, Donald Trump announced he’s imposing a 25 percent tariff on all imported cars. He’s described April 2, the day in which his reciprocal tariffs regime will supposedly be fully implemented, as 'liberation day' for the United States."
~ Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson
#Trump #tariffs #taxes #incompetence #stupidity
/3
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-mckinley-tariffs-rauchway-interview
"There is no Secret Genius lurking in the Trump administration. They’re not playing 3-D chess. There’s not some grand strategy. No, Occam’s Razor cuts deep here, and lots of blood may soon be spilled as a result of the evident implication:
The most powerful people in the world are both stupid and incompetent."
~ Brian Klaas
"It appears that the use of Signal is a widespread practice in the Department of Defense in order to “communicate with the White House.”
Therefore, we should assume that foreign hackers have read every message between the White House and the Department of Defense over the last 63 days."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
#Trump #incompetence #stupidity #Signalgate
/1
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/signalgate-a-crack-in-the-facade
What did we learn from the super secret (but entirely hackable) war planning group chat?
We learned that #stupidity & #incompetence are rampant in the Trump regime.
#uspolitics #corruption #trumpcabinet #trumpcabinetofcorruption
Ok, so... Apple ‘Intelligence' - I've accidentally activated it by tapping on the bar at the bottom both on my iPad while using Procreate for work, and on my iPhone while playing Doodle Jump 2+ (Don't judge me).
Is there any way to turn this activation method off? I don't need to have so many ways to ask a question that Siri is likely to answer incorrectly anyway 
So many stupid #movies and #TV shows talk about "the drive" & "hard drive" where people kill each other to get their hands on them, as if digital data can't be copied or shared.
It's really upsetting to watch.
Are screen writers really that stupid?
#WTAF
#tvshows #HardDrive #stupidity #computers #DigitalData #Idiocracy
Russian main state propagandist on TV about Witkoff:
"It doesn't matter if we believe it ourselves, as long as the empty american heads believe it.
Then there's Witkoff. I'm impressed that we shot them down! Here's an example of an empty american head that believed it! <laughs>"
Again. I don't even have to say it. You can just watch it.
