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Even he knows this won't be fixed by political discourse.
I am also weary of Bernie's endless calls to do this or that while not specifying any way of doing it. I certainly don't expect him to do anything more, he's already made a much larger impact than most individuals ever can or will. But that entire tour with AoC kind of felt like only half of a useful thing. We all know it's a problem. We all want to put a stop to it. But nobody knows how, that's what's missing. What do you want us to do, Bernie?!? Vote in the primaries, I guess? Would be nice if the next steps were included in the message to take action. Like an instant macaroni box whose instructions just say "You must make the macaroni!", it feels a bit silly.
I get this feeling when I watch Jon Oliver. Jon's really good at identifying the problem, demonstrating why its a problem, and making you kind of upset about it.
God forbid you ever watched Jon Oliver back to back because you'd go mad with the immediate understanding that you live in bizzaro world.
So, it would be nice if HBO had a second show which was more like myth busters where people championed each of the problems Jon pointed out and left the viewer with a clear understanding what they can do or at the least, what can be done.
Grow your own food, make your own things, slash your expenses. If everyone does this, the enemy loses most of their power
As someone who lives this type of lifestyle, also share and barter within your community. It takes more than one household to manage everything. Meet your neighbors. Share skills and ideas. Support one another.
I feel like Jordan Klepper would be perfect for that, he does great on the street engaging with folks and trying to explain their ignorance slowly
(FYI Jon is the frazzled old mensch, John is the increasingly frustrated Brit)
He does try to give a solution. It's just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen. Sadly, that is just the way it is. Same with Bernie. We actually can't make the solutions happen. But both are raising public awareness, which "can" impact policy. So I guess watching and listening is what we can do.
It’s just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen.
There are some tremendously powerful actions Bernie could be suggesting we do to fix this mess.
For example, he could be publicly calling for people to:
Vaguely calling for the end of oligarchy instead of loudly calling for those very actionable steps is a bit of a missed opportunity for the resistance.
However, If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Look at how effective the above mentioned methods were when used in Chile in 2019.. If we completely reject the political system and rebel on a mass scale, there is NOTHING they can do to stop us.
I think he believes, like I do, that a general strike is not going to happen right now. If he were to call for it, and it fails to happen, he loses a lot of his influence. And most people aren't willing to put thier livelihood on the line yet. As for unions... they are already on the up swing. More and more places are unionizing. I don't think that effort needs his help at the moment. But I could be wrong on that.
Union membership declined from 2023 to 2024 to under 10% of the US workforce, despite a high public approval.
I think Bernie explaining to people how unionizing could be weaponized against the regime would help, and particularly if he endorsed the IWW; a more militant union who are not corporate captured, nor only seek increased wages and are then become pacified as other more normal trade unions tend toward. The IWW is the only worker-led anti-capitalist union in the US.
Perpare for and participate in a general strike,
I would love to see a politician as prominent as Bernie openly call for that. But he'd get assassinated so fast...
...and if nothing else, documenting what is being done, if it will ever come to a point where it can be turned around.
There's a reason the Nazis paved over and planted fucking trees on as many concentration camps they possibly could before they got overrun.
If he said what needs to be done, he'd be imprisoned immediately for inciting violence against the president, and for planning a coup. Until he has troops on his side, he can not tell you what actually has to happen.
Bernie needs to set up an alt account on Twitter where he pretends to be a Republican but reposts all these same messages.
The thought of running around with a 5 million dollar ring gives me heart palpitations.
You should have never trusted them, the country.
The fact that a ring can be worth more then it would cost to provide financial independence for hunderds of people, is kinda jarring.
I know, I know, pretty rock and metal worth paper value notes.
So really that ring is pure loss.
No one owned that gem when it was just sitting in the ground. It took millions of years to create.
Some capitalism claimed it when one of his workers mined it. Calculated how much energy and labor it has costs to obtain it.
Then sold it for a massive markup compared to their own costs.
The machines have spend energy to get it (loss)
The workers spend life time and life energy to get it (loss)
Bezos his works spend their life time and energy to make him the money he now loses on this ring. (Loss)
The planet lost one of its rare gems. (Loss)
No lives are going to be saved using that rock, its not going to be used for breakthrough science, its not in a museum where we the people can admire our planet and learn from the its amazing processes. (No profit)
Instead its to decorate a hand so one person can be perceived as having value. Ironic.
That chick should be mad. 3-months salary for him would be like $27 billion.
That's a DeBeers diamond cartel propaganda rule of thumb.
Can the "leftists" in the room start pushing actionable rhetoric?
I agree that we should do something about the oligarchy too.
Maybe the liberal leaders that keep hogging the mic every local protest should give directions to the largest group of protesters in American history.
I dont know, I think there is nothing but dead air from the liberal side. Its gross. More messaging for the DNC comes from nobodies like me then from the party itself. Sure I might be more authentic but ffs Im just one dude.
I watch the news cycle and you can basically tell when the GOP are gearing up because its just dead silence on the platforms I visit. Now, not "dead silence". There are your typical memes, news articles, and reposts but never anything from the dnc itself. No top down messaging; no platforming small creators; no baiting of the right. What the DNC has done is made these strile online environments where the right can constantly come in and, basically, disturb the peace.
It has become so insane that now the far left is doing it too. Show me one leftist who will get in the same beat down brawls they do on this site, do that on Facebook, Twitter, or Truth. They cant because they've been expelled from those places.
Im ranting too much and getting to in my own head. This is just what I see.
The DNC is rudderless and has no media strategy. Their only media guys think they need to turn right wingers into left wingers and it just doesn't work. If trump didnt flip you, youre never leaving the right.
We need to take the DNC over from the inside. We need to primary all of them.
Primary elections in general have a ridiculously low turnout rate, and that's the first place the battle must be waged.
National wealth cap set at 1000x the median household income. Anything over this is taxed at 100%. This would be about $80 million today.
But for people who cheat on their taxes or try to amass a secret fortune well beyond the cap? Secretly amassing a fortune over $1 billion will be a felony with a mandatory minimum 20 year prison sentence.
Even if we tax Jeff bezos 30% realistically it won't make any difference because Trump and his cronies will just blow it on an even more ridiculous ICE budget or build more concentration camps or bomb Iran again.
That's why we need a national wealth cap. Forget the tax. We need a maximum wealth. You simply are not allowed to have more than a certain amount of money. We need bounded capitalism. Capitalism can be a very useful system. It has a lot of merits over central planning. But in any kind of machine or system that humans devise, when is it ever beneficial to let any parameter increase to infinity? Let an engine spin too fast, and it will tear itself to pieces. Build an irrigation system that delivers an unbounded amount of water, and your crops drown. A well insulated house heated by a powerful furnace can bring comfort. Let it burn an arbitrarily large amount of fuel, and you will be cooked alive in your own bed. No system that humans design for our needs and comforts works when one of its core values is allowed to increase without bound. Inevitably this throws the whole system out of balance and leads to disaster.
And what is our economy and society if not an elaborate machine? A way of distributing resources, assigning work, etc? Allowing people to earn different amounts of money is a very useful thing. It encourages people to produce useful goods and services. It encourages innovation. It incentivizes getting an education and contributing to society. We're not perfect at any of these. Market mechanisms have many flaws. But our system does have a lot of merit over simply assigning everyone the same flat wage for all work done. It is useful to allow people to accrue modest fortunes. But that useful mechanism, completely unbounded? It unbalances society and tears us apart.
1000x the median household income. We set that as the maximum allowable fortune. 1000 times the average family wage. That I believe is the place to set such a cap. This would be approximately $80 million. This is so much money, that even the highest paid wage workers - people like brain surgeons - if they work a long career, choose to live in a literal cardboard box on the sidewalk, and invest every penny they make? They would struggle to reach that cap before they die of old age, even if they live very long lives. The only way to earn more money than this is to earn your wealth primarily by taking advantage of the labor of others.
Any money earned beyond this? Taxed at 100%. And at some point above this cap? Simply having that amount of money becomes a criminal offense. I want to make it a felony for someone to have a fortune over $1 billion. Mandatory minimum 20 year sentence for secretly amassing a fortune over $1 billion. Make Bezos and Musk give all their money away, flee the country, or blow their fortunes on the single greatest party in the history of the human race. Frankly I would be OK with any of these outcomes. But they cannot be allowed to retain these strategically dangerous fortunes. They have declared war on the rest of us. And it's time we started responding in kind. We must wipe out the billionaires as an economic class entirely.
"There should be no billionaires" is not just a slogan. It is a concrete policy we could choose to enact.
5 million dollar ring for that wife?
Sir Mix Alot would be ashamed. Silicone parts are made for toys
So he only spends 0,0087 % of his wealth for the wedding? Sounds pathetic. Most normal people even go in debt for it.
"Damn, why isn't Bernie ramboing his way through the billionaires on his own??? Doesn't he know that all of us bitching about him are too lazy to do it ourselves???"
BuT hE's A sElF mAdE mAn !
Then it's time to unmake the man.
I'm sorry 5 million? For a ring? I'd feel insane amounts of guilt wearing a ring that cost that much
I imagine if these people were capable of feeling guilt, much of their behavior would be different