Wait til you hear about Puerto Rico after Maria. I was there 2 years after and there were whole parts of the island that had no power or running water. It took me almost 2 months to get my gear shipped in as they had an active triage on what was shipped by need. It was one pallet, thats how tight it was even after 2 years.
The less touristy parts of New Orleans were still fucked (though not without power, afaik) in 2012 from Katrina in 2005.
2012? Those scars still won’t smooth out for another two generations.
Absolutely believable, I just haven’t been back since 2012
from Aug 24, 2026.
https://x.com/SenSanders/status/2091970263856394274The government is no longer serving everyone. It’s not even serving the red states that voted for the current regime. It’s serving the ultra wealthy. It’s even openly pay to play: You get access to Trump by bribing him.
Also the regime is incompetent and despises expertise, so not only can they not negotiate with Iran, but they can’t operate the US armed forces to engage Iran with military force. The administration serves as an adverse force multiplier. And is wrecking the lives and integrity of the units.
The US is no longer a nation. It’s a pile of debt and assets that are being financialized, picked apart like buzzards would a carcass.
The government is no longer serving everyone.
When did it ever?
The US is no longer a nation.
Most nations have historically operated like this. Hell, it’s the foundation of feudal societies. Oversized robber-baronies which violently extract wealth from their residents, for the aggrandizement of the aristocracy. If you go back to the old school 19th century Anarchist literature, it’s this view of government that underpins their belief in the abolition of state systems.
But to claim the US has stopped being a nation because it has shit domestic policy? I just don’t know what kind of definition of “nation” you’re working with.
At this point, the federal government is divesting itself of its responsibilities to the states. The Trump regime is actively seeking to not provide services and support to those parts of the nation that didn’t vote for him, but in doing so is actually hitting red states (and red counties in blue states) harder than he is the blue ones.
But the message is clear: Some of us no longer count as Americans, according to MAGA or the White House. The individual states are responding accordingly, either challenging these denials of support legally, or creating state-level alternatives. But some places are being left in a state of disaster. Puerto Rico is rationing water (to the people while corporate interests retain water access) and Gary, Indiana has been without electrical service for two weeks now. Then there’s the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Here in California, we’re fighting wildfires without FEMA support, but that’s been the case since early 2025. And there are a few other natural disaster hot zones to which FEMA has been unresponsive.
So, the US is behaving like a failing state. That’s not a strict boolean. The decline and fall of a nation a long, slow, non-linear process. We don’t know if it’ll devolve into civil war or toward the fracturing of the US into separate allied clusters of states. It’s up to the individual historian (say a century from now) to decide exactly at what point the US actually failed. Rome, for instance, fell across centuries.
Right now, the federal government has pretty much abdicated its duties to the states, and only serving corporations who pledged fealty to the Trump regime early on. (Again, some government action is taking place due to court orders, but the administration isn’t always obedient to them.) The states are on their own for anything they don’t fight for.
I suppose there could be more severe symptoms that might indicate the failure of the federal government. Civil war between states, anarchy in municipalities, or the rise of martial law in some counties, whether by the National Guard, by local police departments, or by regime paramilitaries such as ICE.
For me, I’m still a Californian, but the Trump Department of Justice and Department of State would not consider me American anymore, for being a leftist and disabled, and in fact might regard me as a terrorist. I am, after all, the chief regional officer of Antifa.
At this point, the federal government is divesting itself of its responsibilities to the states. The Trump regime is actively seeking to not provide services and support to those parts of the nation that didn’t vote for him, but in doing so is actually hitting red states (and red counties in blue states) harder than he is the blue ones.
A reversion to the historical mean. Prior to the post-Depression 20th century, the US Federal government has historically been weak and disconnected from state operations.
To claim we’re not a state because Trump has gone 10% more Calvin Coolidge with it, you have to ignore the century and a half when Coolidge was the norm.
So, the US is behaving like a failing state. That’s not a strict boolean. The decline and fall of a nation a long, slow, non-linear process. We don’t know if it’ll devolve into civil war or toward the fracturing of the US into separate allied clusters of states. It’s up to the individual historian (say a century from now) to decide exactly at what point the US actually failed. Rome, for instance, fell across centuries.
I mean, we’re not even out of the Roman Republican Era, as a point of comparison. I don’t think it’s fair to say Rome’s fall began with Caeser given that it continued to expand and advance for the next 400 years.
Folks writing the eulogy for the US when we’re just now really getting our hooks into Latin America and the Pacific Rim seem to have missed some historical milestones.
There’s a propagandized version of a “nation” as “a country with functional and supportive social systems,” which I think most people subscribe to. Whether or not their country every really qualified as a “nation” by that metric is debatable.
‘The US is no longer a nation. It’s a pile of debt and assets that are being financialized, picked apart like buzzards would a carcass.’
In a trench coat!
It feels like the worst parts of Las Vegas and “Big Box Retail.” Everything is being parted out to private equity, and it’s not for us people (or even U.S people) anymore.
I use Vegas as an example because all of the fun family-ish attractions and locals’ incentives have all but been eradicated, replaced with celebrity-DJ’d highrise night/day clubs and luxury shopping that seem to pander to the most egregious ends of wealthy foreign money. (Probably where a lot of shady deals go down, too.)
The other end is conventions, of course. If you wanna woo a guy who knows a guy to give
youyour boss’s boss’s boss a government contract for kill-drones, it probably happens here.The majority of residents’ place in this new structure is as servants, hawking luxury goods and experiences they themselves couldn’t possibly hope to attain because they’re actively shut out.
A little tangent here, but my point was: Feels like the entire country is following this ruinous pattern.
The rich are their own country, and if they have it their way, we are but their footstools across the globe.
Not Louisiana; Paris, France; or even Rome?
It’s the place that knew me when.
Gary, Indiana - let me say it once again.
That’s probably on purpose
‘okay okay, we will schedule a couple bombing runs for Gary, to make things even. that’s how equality works right? ah fuck it’ pushes red button
If we kill Blackrock, we solve so many issues.
Uh… No? BlackRock is a passive company. They “own” so much because people buy they ETFs and mutual funds which buy stock in everything. You’re basically saying get rid of pension funds, 401ks and retail investors because those are largely the people using BlackRock and Vanguard funds.
Looking at your down votes here I don’t think you are correct.
It’s kind of a problem that they own the stock. It’s not the people that own the ETFs or mutual funds that get to vote with the shares. Instead, a company gets to amass that power using other people’s money.
I don’t know what a good solution is, but it’s very much a problem.
I don’t know how it all works, but I did see on Vanguard there’s an option to change how vanguard votes on your behalf. There’s the default of “maximum profit”, but there’s also “long term stability” and “ethical” (not the exact names). I don’t think every company has options like that, but they probably should, if we’re going to keep this kind of thing around at all.
If you use vanguard, go see what your options are.
Edit: think I found it https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/about-our-funds/proxy-voting-across-funds/investor-choice.html#policy-options
Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy […] This policy by rule rejects proposals based on environmental, social, or political considerations unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal.
None of them look super good though
This might be the most evil thing I’ve learned about this year.
This policy by rule rejects proposals based on environmental, social, or political considerations unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal.
The fact that it exists and they’re making a whole thing of letting you opt out of doing that, tells you a lot about what the standard practice in the industry is.
None of them look super good though
Yeah there’s no option for genuine environmental or social activism, just one that follows some other investment company’s ostensibly ethical voting strategy. Again, this speaks TONS about the Epstein class running these funds, that they’re scared that giving such an option might result in people actually taking it.
The US is oddly very similar to a third world country in how it works sometimes
I wish people knew what “Third World” meant, from a historical context. Quite a few historical “Third World” nations were as advanced as their NATO and Soviet peers, at the time the term was coined. But the most advanced nations were then subjected to decades of sanction and espionage and outright bombing, until the term became synonymous with war-torn hellhole.
The US doesn’t have this excuse. We’re de-industrializing due to a combination of cheapass degeneracy and vindictive bigotry.
Particularly towards its minority populations. The US is full of colonized peoples and regions that it has, if not an extractive relationship with, than a relationship that’s passively exterminationist.
In much the same way that the US shoved its indigenous peoples only reservations, expecting them to die off or otherwise exit the stage of history, black people were redlined into inner cities for the same purpose. Now Gary, IN is without power, Flint, MI goes without water, etc.
Of course, this also becomes an active process as well, like when the FBI murdered Fred Hampton, or propped up a tinpot dictator on the Lakota reservation in South Dakota in the 70s.
But that internal Colonial relationship is at the core of all of it
remember Flint, pepperidge farm remembers, it took them a long time to fix it.
There were places in the US that didn’t have power for over a month after hurricane Laura. I know because I experienced it firsthand.
I’m telling you, that was my thought too. But my second thought was that hurricanes are way more destructive, over a much bigger area. If I can get power in two weeks after hundreds of miles of 150mph wind and 20’ floods, why aren’t they fixed yet?
This shit in Gary is extra fucked up.
Hurricanes get more exposure and bring storm chasers out. Also, areas used to major events like hurricanes have better planning.
They shot at the repairmen. Gary was once the most dangerous place in the US. There’s more to the story
Writing a snarky tweet on the fashy social media site seems to be the extent of any democrats abilities. Thanks Bernie, I’m inspired.
:yawn:
Republicans complained whenever they received delayed federal aid but when they’re in power the opposition receives no aid.
The safest place you can be right now is in a red state, in the eye of the hurricane, blending in.
While this is the first I’m hearing about this. Again. What does this have to do with work reform?
Priorities seem straight to me. Impoverish non-white Americans so that old richwhitemen can do whatever they want.
FYI, this post has been reported as “off topic”, along with the declaration that posts of this nature make this board indistinguishable from Lemmy Politics.
As the sole Mod, I’m going to allow it because this sort of issue is a direct consequence of our civilization’s corporate-centric approach to governing, and highlights the urgent need for Work Reform; the implementation of a system that is not 100% profit-driven or based around profit outcomes. Indeed; Work Reform is a political concept at its core since the entrenched powers never reform from within, but only change due to outside pressure.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with this approach. All opinions are valid.
I’m inclined to say off topic, but i’m not angry about it if it stays. I really appreciate your mod style. Thank you for asking for opinions from the community.
It’s not especially on-topic but it’s not completely unrelated either. I think it’s fine as an edge case but that doesn’t mean a ton more like it should also be allowed.
Technically I think it is off-topic since it has nothing directly to do with work reform. Note, I said directly, so no need to point ouf correlations between work reform and racism or bad government in general.
I know what you mean, and your logic is 100% sound.
By the time I saw this it was 8hrs old with +250 upvotes though, so I didn’t want to purge it against the will of the people.
That’s how I feel about moderation. I’ve followed reddit posts that had hundreds of comments and suddenly got removed because technically they didn’t belong where they were. Always annoying.
Exactly my experience!
If it was languishing with a dozen upvotes and no comments, that’d be one thing; but it’s generating discussion and interaction, so I’m not going to be the spoil-sport on this one.
Great job on moderation. A reasoned and practical approach.
Thank you!
All opinions are valid.
Wrong.
That’s my opinion, therefore it is valid. ;-)
LOL that’s valid
I thought about editing that since unconstructive replies are less valid, but figured whatevs. I’d rather hear all feedback than discourage poor feedback. :p
I wanted to write up a bunch of silly opinions, but I’m exhausted from dialysis, so you just got that joke. heh. I also wanted to say something about the moderation style - I always preferred community feedback like that as well, so just know that I have high praise for it :)
Awwwws, thanks! Best wishes for your dialysis, that’s rough. Hope things work out as well as possible
My complaint is that it’s from a serial Reddit reposter. If I wanted a reddit feed, I’d go to reddit. Last I looked, they posted 10x the amount they comment, drowning out communities
Oh, its Sanitation again, I didn’t notice that.
I understand and appreciate your point. But as long as they’re abiding by the rules of the sub, I’m going to let the community upvotes & downvotes be greater determinants of the worthiness of their posts. And as long as they’re not being a bad actor, I won’t ban this or any other user.
I’m just glad to see posts that are mostly-applicable to the topic rather than those spammy fake jobs or that one guy obsessed with the end of the world.
It would be nice if you could at least ask him to make less reposts, I noticed that the first ~10 posts are almost only from him and that by scrolling further down, every other post made by someone else had way less comment and activity which is concerning, people will get tired to post in a community where they get drowned by reposts; i am concerned that the community will slowly drown
Right, it’s a complaint I tend to keep to myself, sometimes letting people know that they aren’t going to get a reply or more details, as that’s frustrating as a user
Hey, it sucks to hear this place only has one mod. I have free time and I strongly believe in the mission of decentralized social media. If you want any help I would be more than happy to volunteer my time.
I’ll keep that in mind, thanks! Fortunately this is Lemmy, so I only have one or two reports each day to deal with (for now). And most users actually seem pretty mature and reasonable!
I have a hope that the sort of people to be on Lemmy at all aren’t the sort to be too toxic or unreasonable; and mostly that’s been wonderfully true in my (limited) experience!
