The solution is this: every sector of the economy has been optimized to extract as much money from everyone as possible. This is the implicit role of government–to help the rich get richer making money off of other people. Have an idea that makes money? The government will help you make it happen.
This through-and-through corruption means that people now graduate in lifelong debt, working jobs that don’t cover the rent of places they can never own and spend money on health insurance they can never use because they can’t afford the co-pays and they are forced to buy an expensive car because that’s the only way to finance because the busroutes have all been purchased by car companies and liquidated long ago. Forced to work longer hours and with less money in our pockets, our third spaces disappear. Now stuck at home, we are forced to buy electronics at inflated prices because of the AI bubble and use oligopoly internet that should have long ago been regulated as a monopoly but for the massive campaign contributions those companies made to politicians.And our food is more expensive because it is controlled by a few companies.
It’s about money. But a nice side effect is that it keeps the people busy so they have little down time to reflect on why they are in that condition, or more importantly, no time left to take action, as well as the threat that if they do anything, it could endanger their job and life. That’s why they don’t take away too much from too many, otherwise suddenly those masses don’t have anything to threaten and a lot of free time to notice what happened and by whom. Bread and circuses.
That’s a pretty good summary of the situation, but it’s the problem, not the solution.
Sooner or later, something’s gotta bend or it’ll break. The oligarchs know this, and that’s why they’re putting so much effort into pacifying with false promises while tightening surveillance and control. They hope to starve us out or put us down before we reach our breaking point. They want us broken and weak long before it comes to that.
And honestly, the level of technology and the global hegemony of the capitalist order present us with a situation that’s never been seen before. The level of control and the efficiency of the surveillance state, the impersonal nature of automated weapons, makes for more than just an uphill battle. Calling ordinary people the underdogs is an overstatement of the hope we have.
And with more and more tyrants in the world learning what they can get away with, and the so-called “free world” opting for passivism and appeasement while handling their own internal threats with kiddie gloves and being more or less complicit with the plutocratic interests behind it all, it seems there’s very little hope this time for outside intervention saving us either.
So much rests on these midterms coming up. I hope they happen fairly and without too much ratfucking, I hope the people come out in droves to punish the fascists for what they’re doing to our democracy, and I hope the results of the election are duly acknowledged and the peaceful transfer of power happens smoothly. I hope enough people of good will make it into the next congress to successfully put a halt to the fascist agenda and block them from ratfucking our elections even worse, and I hope in two years we elect somebody who will restore our institutions and see justice done to those who have been dismantling it.
I don’t believe it’s too late for the world to make a comeback, but so much rests on these upcoming elections. Doomsayers will come out of the woodworks to try to discourage us from voting. We cannot listen to them.
The solution is this: every sector of the economy has been optimized to extract as much money from everyone as possible. This is the implicit role of government–to help the rich get richer making money off of other people. Have an idea that makes money? The government will help you make it happen.
This through-and-through corruption means that people now graduate in lifelong debt, working jobs that don’t cover the rent of places they can never own and spend money on health insurance they can never use because they can’t afford the co-pays and they are forced to buy an expensive car because that’s the only way to finance because the busroutes have all been purchased by car companies and liquidated long ago. Forced to work longer hours and with less money in our pockets, our third spaces disappear. Now stuck at home, we are forced to buy electronics at inflated prices because of the AI bubble and use oligopoly internet that should have long ago been regulated as a monopoly but for the massive campaign contributions those companies made to politicians.And our food is more expensive because it is controlled by a few companies.
We are no longer citizens. We are livestock.
This is unsustainable.
It’s about money. But a nice side effect is that it keeps the people busy so they have little down time to reflect on why they are in that condition, or more importantly, no time left to take action, as well as the threat that if they do anything, it could endanger their job and life. That’s why they don’t take away too much from too many, otherwise suddenly those masses don’t have anything to threaten and a lot of free time to notice what happened and by whom. Bread and circuses.
100%, The New Deal in the USA was largely a result of the fear of a communist revoltuion during the Great Depression.
That’s a pretty good summary of the situation, but it’s the problem, not the solution.
Sooner or later, something’s gotta bend or it’ll break. The oligarchs know this, and that’s why they’re putting so much effort into pacifying with false promises while tightening surveillance and control. They hope to starve us out or put us down before we reach our breaking point. They want us broken and weak long before it comes to that.
And honestly, the level of technology and the global hegemony of the capitalist order present us with a situation that’s never been seen before. The level of control and the efficiency of the surveillance state, the impersonal nature of automated weapons, makes for more than just an uphill battle. Calling ordinary people the underdogs is an overstatement of the hope we have.
And with more and more tyrants in the world learning what they can get away with, and the so-called “free world” opting for passivism and appeasement while handling their own internal threats with kiddie gloves and being more or less complicit with the plutocratic interests behind it all, it seems there’s very little hope this time for outside intervention saving us either.
So much rests on these midterms coming up. I hope they happen fairly and without too much ratfucking, I hope the people come out in droves to punish the fascists for what they’re doing to our democracy, and I hope the results of the election are duly acknowledged and the peaceful transfer of power happens smoothly. I hope enough people of good will make it into the next congress to successfully put a halt to the fascist agenda and block them from ratfucking our elections even worse, and I hope in two years we elect somebody who will restore our institutions and see justice done to those who have been dismantling it.
I don’t believe it’s too late for the world to make a comeback, but so much rests on these upcoming elections. Doomsayers will come out of the woodworks to try to discourage us from voting. We cannot listen to them.
The U.S. is an open air prison
Open-air farm.
This is not the explicit role of government in a functional social democracy. Which the USA obviously are not.
so what would be your first act as president
After that speech, I guess I’d start trust-busting, but that’s presuming just being president would give me that power.