Whats your guess on when americans will figure it out ?

ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 123 points –
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Military numbers seem grossly undervalued

We don't know their dark money shush fund income or expenditure, and guess who's never passed an audit?

I would be shocked if they were earning a significant amount compared to federal funding. This is monthly, if you missed that like OP.

The US has a problem of representation. Specifically and especially since the Citizens United decision, corporate interests can easily flow money towards politicians to make them do just about anything they want. This exacerbated an existing problem with the corporate tax rate and has now brought it into laughably low territory.

That's all an oversimplification of course, but it's not that Americans haven't "figured it out". It is far more complicated than that.

Thank you. I'm getting quite tired of people posting the most fucking obvious takes about problems in the US, then going "why haven't americans fixed this? are they stupid?", when we have exceedingly small control over the actions of our shitass policy makers.

It's some real "everyone is dumb except for me" energy.

Oh, we've known. There just isn't anything we can do about it.

You can organize.

Like we did with Occupy Wall Street or are doing now for Palestine?

OWS crumbled in ways right out of various leaked three letter agency guides to disrupting grass roots movements.

I'd love to see it get another try, with how news sources have become far more decentralized. Less opportunity for major news orgs to kill the momentum.

Full disclosure, the destruction of OWS is pretty much the one thing I allow myself to go "full tinfoil hat" over.

Covid protests and jan6... There is a always some fed running this things even ifntheu start organically.

OWS was not well-organized. Palestinian solidarity groups are doing better. The key difference is in being able to coherently make informed decisions as a group and then act on them as one.

Every OWS encampment was basically 5-30 orgs all doing their own thing and then fighting about horizontalism and being naive about how the cops and City Hall would treat them. We need to be able to act like 1-3 orgs (even if there are more), politically educate so we can avoid mistakes, and create good structure as early as possible so that expectations are set and time isn't wasted and bad decisions are avoided.

The US left is basically slowly relearning the basics of organizing. Get involved and make it go faster!

I'm not American, but generally exploite people can't afford to miss work.

The bolsheviks managed to, as have other revolutionary groups.

If you are doing this shot at a gun point, you are no better than the regime you are fighting

What a clown take to glorify Bolsheviks' crimes.

How is this anymore acceptable than "people voted for Hitler" shit?

If you are doing this shot at a gun point, you are no better than the regime you are fighting

Oppressed people have the right to use violence to liberate themselves. Were the Haitian Slaves wrong for killing their Masters? Was John Brown wrong for killing Slave Owners? Were the French wrong for killing the Monarchy? Were the Bolsheviks wrong for killing the Tsar? Are Palestinians wrong for killing the IDF?

Violence is a tool that should be used sparingly and carefully, yes. It should be avoided, if possible. However, if non-violence is proven to not work, then that leaves violence, or threat of violence, as the remaining path.

The idea that using violence against oppressors makes you "no better than them" is useless moralism used to justify an extremely violent system that daily beats its subjects.

What a clown take to glorify Bolsheviks' crimes.

Was it a crime to liberate Russia from the brutal Tsars and pull Russia out of the highly unpopular and bloody World War I?

How is this anymore acceptable than "people voted for Hitler" shit?

What on Earth are you talking about? Why are you comparing liberatory violence with voting in Hitler?

After they killed the czars, they turned on the people.

That's the part tankie won't teach you folks but a quick Wikipedia search should explain to you what they did to the peasants, esp in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

After they killed the czars, they turned on the people.

Yea, they helped the people by ending famines, doubling life expectancy, getting to 99% literacy rates, provided free college and healthcare, and democratized government.

That's the part tankie won't teach you folks but a quick Wikipedia search should explain to you what they did to the peasants, esp in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

Are you genuinely under the impression that Marxists somehow spent their entire lives avoiding western narratives around the USSR, read dozens of books on history and theory, and somehow have never once seen the western point of view? Are you specifically referring to events, or their entire history?

As an example, prior to the current Russo-Ukranian conflict escalating in 2022, in 2019 62% of Ukranians said they were worse off then, than under Communism. Ukranians enjoyed being a part of the USSR more than they do being a part of the current Ukranian State. Similarly, Central Asia (including Kazakhstan) is not without Soviet Nostalgia either.

This is, of course, after you said using violence against oppressors makes you no better than them, which automatically makes you anti-Palestine, pro-Confederacy, anti-Haitian Slave Revolt, anti-French Revolution, and against all violent liberatory movements, if we assume you to be morally consistent.

As an example, prior to the current Russo-Ukranian conflict escalating in 2022, in 2019 62% of Ukranians said they were worse off then, than under Communism. Ukranians enjoyed being a part of the USSR more than they do being a part of the current Ukranian State.

🤡

Make some fake survey to justify fake position, ignore 100 years of history and current situation.

Delusional haha

Which part is fake, and why? Your beloved wikipedia agrees with what I'm saying here too, I just thought you might like to see direct sources. Do you have a single source?

In a 2009 Pew survey, 62% of Ukrainians said life was worse economically nowadays compared to the Soviet era.[14] A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 56% of Ukrainians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, while only 23% thought it was beneficial.[7] In a 2016 survey, 60% of Ukrainians above the age of 35 said life was better under the USSR.[8] However, by 2020, a survey from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that 34% of Ukrainians regretted the dissolution of the USSR, compared to 50% who do not regret it. Regret was highest in Eastern Ukraine where 49% of Ukrainians regretted it compared to 35% who did not, while it was lowest in Western Ukraine where only 15% regretted it compared to 69% who did not.[19]

As an example, prior to the current Russo-Ukranian conflict escalating in 2022, in 2019 62% of Ukranians said they were worse off then, than under Communism.

Bro.. Site your source properly.

Cherry picking survey to support your position while ignoring overwhelming majority voting to exit Russian clown state along with every other republic.

Saying this shit while Ukraine has to fight a war for its existance is beyond idiotic. Who do you think you covering with this?

Do you ever wonder why Warsaw pack states joined EU and NATO first chance they got?

Must be because life under Russian boot was that great lol

Cherry picking survey to support your position while ignoring overwhelming majority voting to exit Russian clown state along with every other republic.

Didn't cherry pick at all, Socialism was better for Ukranians and every group in the former USSR. Additionally, it's quite the opposite to say that most people wanted out of the USSR, the vast majority wished to retain the USSR in a popular vote. The USSR was dissolved illegally against the will of the people.

Saying this shit while Ukraine has to fight a war for its existance is beyond idiotic. Who do you think you covering with this?

Are you under the impression that the Russian Federation is somehow still Communist, or are you just racist against Russians? What's your point, here? Are you saying you hate the USSR because they were Russian, not because they were Communists, or was this just a fumbled point?

Do you ever wonder why Warsaw pack states joined EU and NATO first chance they got?

Shock Therapy destroyed these countries, 7 million people died due to the collapse of the USSR. The Warsaw Pact nations flocked to the more stable western nations as the same western nations plundered the remnants of the USSR.

Must be because life under Russian boot was that great lol

Again, as we can see, life was better under Socialism, more economically stable, and more democratic, hence why people that actually lived in the USSR have a highly consistent favorable opinion.

Please, read modern history books written after the opening of the Soviet Archives, where historians were finally granted access to internal historical evidence. Right now your only argument is just that you think Russians themselves are bad, which is blatant racism.

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Imagine if americans were as excited to shoot politicians as they get about shooting kids in school

Yeah I can’t figure it out. All those gun rights. You’d think they’d do more with them

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USians spent 4.5 TRILLION dollars on healthcare in 2022.

It was really bothering me that I was pronouncing this “YOO ESS-EEANNS” in my head every time I saw people using it. I just realized it can definitely also be “YOO-ZHIANS.” Which is obviously far superior.

Estate taxes is woefully small. There should be a 100% death tax on all assets after $1M, excluding a single home.

Have to keep everyone poor to control them

I'm not sure I understand your point so if I'm off base let me know.

Firstly, inheriting $200k - $1M doesn't keep anyone poor. It doesn't even stop wealth from concentrating at a level that harms others and warps society - it just prevents that level of wealth from passing down to people who did nothing.

Secondly, if everyone was poor who would be controlling them? You have to keep most people poor and a much smaller group of people unassailably wealthy to control them. That's exactly the problem that high death taxes address.

In my part of the world $1m (even for USD, add 40%)is not even enough to buy a small house. A million dollars is a FUCKLOAD of work but you can't buy shit. At best you get a country shack with maintenance required, no insulation kind of thing, and no money left over.

Maybe that adds some context.

And is that $1m cap per person or for the whole estate? Either way people aren't gonna interit anything that worthwhile

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Most have, increasingly so, they just lack strong orgs. As Imperialism decays, more will be forced to grapple with reality.

The people are in debt... to themselves

And as long as people have confidence in our currency, the debt we owe to ourselves really doesn't matter

Thought MMT was recently disproved.

No sources. Thought the recent inflation showed it to not model things. It would be great if MMT worked though.

MMT isn’t a tool for modeling all of inflation’s factors. It’s simply a description of how sovereign fiat money works. Some people mistakenly (or knowingly, for disparagement or promotion) attribute things to MMT that it just isn’t.

An astounding amount of our government goes towards taking care of old people, yet it still feels like there is basically no safety net for them.

TBF taxes on billionaires would go under individual taxes. And corporate taxes are relatively easy to fudge because corporations aren't real except on paper.

TBF you should really put more effort into "figuring it out" because you did not figure it out ..

i will give you a hint:

who is getting represented ?

It's a technical detail people might not have been aware of, and I've pointed it out. I'm going to disengage rather than defend a viewpoint I don't even necessarily hold.

The poorest Americans are constantly fighting with the bureaucracy to get assistance, this is by design to make them hate it.

Any addition to the expansion of the state will be met with hostility.

No matter how you tax there isn't 300+ billion of income to find. Endless new debt isn't sustainable.

Endless US debt is fine, provided there keeps being interest in the US dollar as a reserve currency. The US national debt is simply the difference between money printed and money collected. As long as the US dollar “disappears” into the global economy (which it does), inflation is kept under check.