• MiraculousMM [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Right I thought the average size of a congress approved defense budget was just under a trillion lol

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      ·
      2 months ago

      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.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
          ·
          2 months ago

          Someone defending the US few weeks ago said: "decisions are made by those who show up and vote".

          No, decisions are made by those who hold economic and political power. That is NOT the citizenry of capitalist dictatorships. Having elections also serves a lot of ideological functions like:

          • Building consent / subservience for the capitalist dictatorship.
          • Creating the illusion of democracy.
          • Being an entertaining and distracting theatre piece.
          • Serving as a platform for capitalist ideas and talking points, making everything else seem "illegitimate"
          • Being used as a tool of western chauvinism, labeling any other system (even substantive people's democracies) as "undemocratic".
        • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          ·
          2 months ago

          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.

        • Barx [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          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!

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
    ·
    2 months ago

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

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      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 ?

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        ·
        2 months ago

        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.

  • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • Tofu_Lewis [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      there is a Ingroup that the Laws shall protect but never hinder , and ther eis a Outgroup that the laws shall hinder, but never protect.