cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20368770
It’s easy to understand if you realize that America is essentially a corporation rather than a country, and that country is only representing its shareholders.
In case you’re confused - if you’re not rich and powerful, you’re not a shareholder. You’re an employee or a commodity or an expense, and you exist to enrich the shareholder class.
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America had a moment in the 60s and 70s where real change might have been possible. Then Reagan took over in the 80s and selfishness and greed somehow became virtues.
They instilled a sense that helping others makes you dumb and gullible. Strong, smart people get theirs and fuck everyone else.
People who need help are just taking your money to buy drugs and can easily get a job and become middle class instantaneously.
Then a few decades later, the middle class disappeared, and everyone became poor and struggling. Corporate profits keep breaking records, though. Economic inequality in America has surpassed pre-Revolution France. Every billionaire is Louis XIV-level rich and indulgent.
Honestly, it’s incredibly naive to think that America’s issues started with Reagan. The McCarthy witch hunts against communism happened in the 1950s. They targeted education institutions, as well as people that believed in democratic socialism. It stopped a generation from coming up through college and having those values instilled. It was that generation that passed reforms like universal healthcare in other western countries. Reagan was just a product of that system, he wasn’t the root cause.
It is a bit like saying “feminism was going perfectly until Phyllis Schlafly came along!” There’s a point to be made in there somewhere, but it suffers from a want of depth.
We survived the Gilded Age. We can survive this, if we fight. Labor revival, revitalized progressive movement, voting reform…
Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I still hold out hope that we’ll join the developed world in the coming years.
I don’t want to burst your bubble, but the developed world, or rather the people in charge of it, took a good look at you guys and decided they wanted to live like kings as well.
Since then, they have steadily dismantled institution after institution while telling people that immigration is the reason their lives are getting worse. It won’t be long before we lose access to good, free healthcare, safe and affordable education, and all the other qualities of life we’ve enjoyed for so long
I am not enjoying Gilded Age II: Electric Boogaloo
If we had an unlimited timeline I’d buy that, the problem is climate change will make all but struggle inevitable in ~75 years at the rate we’re destroying it.
Famine, water wars, and billions of climate migrants will destroy any hope of an egalitarian revolution…
75 years is a very optimistic timeline. The things you mentioned are already starting to happen.
Yep, get active, get involved, and volunteer. We don’t have to just hope, we can be a part of making it happen
Whether that be for a union or a political campaign, they are won when we fight for them
Just long enough for operation paperclip to have settled in and start grassrooting some real patriotism
Yep truth…one of the only candidates I ever gave serious money to. His platform was basically “Hey let’s catch up to the rest of the 1st world nations shall we?”…
Uh guys, even the “giving money to politicians” thing is really fucking weird
Is this not a thing in other western countries? Serious question and would appreciate knowing more
Brit here. I’ve never donated to a political campaign in my life. I’m not even sure how I would.
Fuck no! We thought yous just…like giving money to already rich people.
Admit it, yous are weird like that
bribery is illegal in most normal countries, not just western
Giving money to politicians is generally considered bribery, because it is
That’s why the Open Market Committee is the most important organ of US government. It adjusts the rules to maximise shareholder value. It’s great if you are a billionaire.
Isn’t it kind of dumb to say that the shit giant media corporations report is somehow worthy of criticism of the US Government?
The state doesn’t run the media in the USA, lmao.
Isn’t it kind of dumb to say that this post is only criticizing the government when it says nothing of the sort?
State controlled media isn’t the only way a society can be corrupt, lmao.
It seems like grasping at straws to say the post title and description below the image are referring to a larger collective of people and explicitly not the state institutions, but in both cases you’d be a nihilistic moron for ignoring the nuanced sociopolitical landscape.
Problem with these messages is they blame the solutions for all their problems. They dont want to fix things. They want a reason to talk shit and encourage violence and destruction.
jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
The people that run the state run the media. Your senator doesn’t care about your vote, but the 9 mil in unofficial gifts from lobbyists of 20 corporations owned mostly by the same billionaire that owns half of all media outlets? They’re listening to that money.
One of he biggest media moguls in the US literally tried to become president and spent a billion dollars on his campaign
Lmfao
And if he wasn’t an antizionist antisemite he would have had my vote, but he is, so he’ll never get it, no matter what other great ideas he has.
Antizionism =/= Antisemitism. You know that a majority of the jewish diaspora outside of Israel are antizionist, right?
You know that the vast majority of British zionists that helped form Israel were christians, yeah? That they just shared a common goal of islamophobia?
And wanting a bit of coastline to funnel Middle Eastern oil out.
You know that a majority of the jewish diaspora outside of Israel are antizionist, right?
Got any stats that? Would love to see them.
Why are you conflating criticism of a genocidal regime with racism?
How is antizionism not a good thing? Also, what has he done or said that’s antisemitic?
He doesn’t unconditionally support the murder of brown children, and that makes him antisemitic, because anything a Jewish person does is inherently Judaism, apparently. Pay no attention to Sanders own heritage, mind you.
You realize that Sanders is of Jewish heritage, right? I highly doubt that criticizes he could do against the Netanyahu government would make him antisemitic to any degree…
Zionism? I don’t know about you, but I’m not racist so I’m not interested in that shite.
What do you mean by this??
Sanders is overwhelmingly a Zionist, he only somewhat started opposing part of Israel’s government when there was overwhelming backlash against him for repeating fascist justification for genocide.
He worked on an Israeli kibbutz in the 60s. He’s also been pretty weak on protecting Palestinians from a genocide, has stated that Israel has a right to defend itself on multiple occasions, and has rejected a ceasefire. He did recently sign a resolution to try to block more arms sales to Israel ($20b worth), but it feels like a weak attempt to try and win back approval from the left.
