Given the fact that the rape of more than 1,000 young girls by Epstein and his billionaire friends had no consequences whatsoever, and that the cold-blooded murder of these innocent Iranian schoolgirls, which is part of the US regime’s cover-up efforts, also has no consequences for those responsible, I would say that the US response would probably be to elevate the culprits to government office.

It would be great if US citizens would at least hold him accountable for this horrific act of violence against little girls, if they don’t want to hold him accountable for the horrific acts of violence against little girls that led him to start this war in the first place, which violates international law.

This is news because it provides evidence of what a piece of shit he is.

Just one example: in Germany, even complete idiots can see why it is more than absurd for any state to use Palantir products. It is really sad that it is even necessary to refute this proposal by obviously corrupt politicians, but this connection to a child molester makes it at least a little easier.

Yup, there is even video evidence that the German chancellor at the time explained to him in detail ages ago how things work, but he clearly still hasn’t understood: Merkel Had To Explain EU Trade To Trump ELEVEN TIMES

The situation will not change on its own, not unless the US population rises up. The US president may change, if there are still free elections at all, which I think is highly doubtful given the establishment of an obvious secret police force in the form of ICE (the budget of this “agency” is equivalent to the military spending of a medium-sized country).

Even under a new, less aggressive administration, however, the fundamental problem will not change: The US is exclusively concerned with itself and does not shy away from using its power to its advantage – this was already the case under Obama, for example, who was eloquent and likeable, but also pursued the usual neo-capitalist policy of exploitation; even under him, it was difficult to say that the US was an ally of Europe. The US may be entitled to this as the most powerful nation in the world. However, it is a dying world power and will soon be overtaken by China. This is entirely foreseeable, and as Europeans we should almost be grateful to Trump, because his insane policies make it obvious how the US feels about its “partners.” - I think he accelerated the decline of the US by at least 10 years as it stands.

But please don’t misunderstand: based on my socialization alone, I would prefer the US to China, but I am not naive. When it comes to autocracy, the difference between the US, Russia, and China is becoming increasingly small. So it seems to me that Europe needs to sell itself as expensively as possible in order to save democracy here - and I think China would be willing to accept the continued existence of democracy in Europe in return for Europe turning away from the US.

The US, on the other hand, can only be expected to follow its own line and continue to undermine democracy, which is what billionaires are already doing in the EU as well, by the way: In Europe, the same social media giants that are enabling right-wing extremist parties to win elections in the US are also highly relevant. They are quite successful in doing so here as well: one example is the neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany, which is the equivalent of MAGA and is hugely popular because it is massively supported by the same billionaires who made Trump big in the US.

Yes, it is unfortunately becoming increasingly clear that even in the EU, billionaires and their companies are above the law. The legal situation should be clear here and there should be consequences - but there apparently aren’t any.

Unfortunately, this applies not only to Twitter, but to most US tech giants in particular, to meta, for example. I have already stopped counting the massive violations of the GDPR that meta and others are constantly committing, because nothing happens anyway. If anything, the fines are so low that violating the law brings these companies far more revenue than it costs them.

So unfortunately, the same major issue that brought the US to the brink of a straight up dictatorship also applies in Europe: even the most blatant violations of the law have no serious consequences for the richest of the rich – and that is why billionaires are becoming more and more powerful.

The situation may be better in the EU for now than in the US, whose legal system obviously no longer even maintains the appearance of fairness, but even in the EU, the enforcement of the law is miles away from anything that could even remotely be called justice.

The reason seems to me to be the same as in the US: concentration of power in a tiny billionaire class that asserts its influence through corruption.

I think that if things continue like this, and I see no indicators that they will not, it will not be long before even the appearance of justice is abandoned in the EU as well.

Edit: Here is an example of how this is possible - it’s just plain old corruption, but in the highest ranks of our institutions: From Meta to the EU Parliament: Former chief lobbyist negotiates data protection (German article)

Aura Salla was Meta’s chief lobbyist in Brussels for many years. Her task: to convince politicians to weaken EU digital rules such as data protection in order to generate even higher profits with Facebook, WhatsApp, and other platforms.

Don’t hold me responsible for this, hold Trump responsible.

It’s in my comment above, but I’m happy to repeat it for you: By threatening to invade Greenland, the US has threatened a founding member of NATO with a war of aggression.

NATO isn’t pissing itself off, just one of its member countries is pissing off all the others: the US.

Yes, absolutely. And that is precisely why we should see to it that all politicians who have benefited from this system are eliminated in democratic countries. For western democracies, this is basically synonymous with eliminating US lobbying and therefore includes most established politicians.

However, the democratic process for doing so is significantly hampered by the fact that social media in particular, but also legacy media is owned by billionaires. This ensures that only a minority in a given country is informed about the fact that only of a tiny fraction of the population, the richest 1%, in all Western democracies has benefited from this system while the population got exploited.

For Germany, for example, this means that under no circumstances one should vote for the AfD, because it is MAGA with the same goals and the same influential financiers - just a different brand.

I understand your point, but I disagree. I think NATO effectively no longer exists anyway - better to get rid of it sooner rather than later. The US recently threatened a war of aggression against one of its founding members. Now would be the right time to punish the geopolitical excesses of the criminal US-regime by creating a new alliance. The US is only a world power because of its military apparatus, which is financed on credit.

I see no reason not to let the existing world order collapse, because it has brought nothing but misery since the end of World War II.

Edit: There can no longer be any talk of a community of values with the US, as the regime there proves on a daily basis. It is more than unlikely that this will change, as the US population remains passive and will therefore soon be living in a dictatorship that will no longer pretend to be any different from oligarchies such as Russia. Therefore, I think, it makes little difference to orient oneself towards China instead.

That goes without saying, given that this is a completely illegal war of aggression. It is inconceivable that the EU is nevertheless acting as if these were allies. This war is a crime and serves to distract from further crimes: in the US, from the fact that the country is run by a fascist pedophile ring, and in Israel, from genocidal fascists whose agent, Epstein, made all this possible in the first place.

It is outrageous that the EU has not withdrawn from NATO and continues to supply weapons to the monsters in Israel.

Of course it is tragic, heartbreaking even. But what bothers me about the term tragic in this context is that it makes it sound as if the deaths of these innocent girls were inevitable, as if they had been killed in a natural disaster for which no one is responsible.

However, that is not the case here at all: these girls were murdered by ruthless criminals.

I didn’t want to start a discussion about the pros and cons of megathreads, I just wanted to ask whether this is common practice in the Fediverse. That doesn’t seem to be the case - and for good reason, given the decentralized nature of the network. For the sake of simplicity, it would be welcome for some topics, but I’m sure we’ll manage just fine without it.

I’m on Piefed(.social). However, the discussion is still mainly taking place on Lemmy. If there is such a megathread on the war in Iran on .world, for example, I can’t find it.

We really need to see that it is in our own interests to eradicate US lobbying. This also means that all EU politicians who have allowed themselves to be bribed must be removed from office.

In my opinion, this includes the majority of politicians from established parties who have been in government in EU countries in the last 10 years.

It is simply necessary to hold them accountable, as voters have rightly lost confidence in them. If there are no consequences, parties such as the AfD in Germany will prevail, which has “Alternative” in its name but absurdly tries to conceal the fact that it is nothing more than MAGA with that: a neo-Nazi party that propagates fascism and is controlled by the same billionaire financiers who helped Nazi ideology succeed in the US - for the same reasons: the realization of the omnipotence trauma of fascist billionaires.

This is not tragic, but a war crime - and this war is itself a crime, simply because it is completely contrary to international law.

The whole point is to distract attention from the Epstein files. So…

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll definitely take a look at that. It’s remarkable how the US has managed to maintain an image of “freedom” for years, even though it uses autocratic surveillance methods not only only on any other country but on its own citizens - and also for years and years. You almost have to be grateful to Trump for revealing all this in such an incredibly stupid way, just to enrich himself.

In 2020, the European Court of Justice declared the Privacy Shield agreement, an agreement on data exchange with the US, incompatible with European law and thus effectively terminated it, not because of the activities of any corporations, but because data stored on US servers is not sufficiently protected from access by the US government (Schrems II ruling). The reason for this is the absurd legislation in the US, such as the Patriot Act, which, although it has been weakened, still allows the state to force any company or private individual to hand over all data processed on servers physically located on US soil, even without any suspicion or a court order.

As a result, all US companies doing business in the EU were forced to operate servers on European soil in order to continue their activities legally. European companies that used US providers that did not comply had to switch to providers that do not operate servers in the US.

Unfortunately, it took only 21 months for US lobbying to undermine the European Court of Justice’s decision: in 2022, a follow-up agreement was adopted, the “EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework,” which is no different from its predecessor at all. The legal situation remains the same in the US, and once again there is no protection of data from the US government.

In short, anyone who uses services that are processed on US servers is not protected from arbitrary access by the US - and this also applies to EU citizens.

If he found out, he would probably say, “Fuč ík” and just go with it.