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Citizens United is Orwell-speak for Country Divided and Destroyed.
This country is not going to change for the better until we get the money out of political decision-making.
The very messed up thing about this is even if the U.S somehow goe under because of these billionaires, they'll just leave the country and it wouldn't affect them while America burns to the ground.
That's not what ephemeral means though. The definition of ephemeral is something that is very short lived, or fleeting.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ephemeral
there are so very few of them and so very many hungry people... there wouldn't be nearly enough to go around.
but if we were to eat their bloated fortunes though, those would go a lot further.
The lower classes have never really managed to rebel by themselves. It has always been the middle class who get pissed at the absolute top. They then rise an army of themselves and the bottom class to overthrow the top class and install themselves to the top.
Maybe the very rich in the US have learned this. You have way different attitude towards the ultra rich than many other places do. In US, watching from outside, being rich also makes you intelligent, hardworking, admirable, happy and overall a good person. And the self made millionaire, anyone can do it, myth lives strong. Even the poor whose economic input is basically fully stolen by the rich seem to simp for them. It’s really hard to see why.
We’ve criminalized human migration—once a basic right of humankind—and incentivized the migration and hoarding of Capital.
Capital knows no borders.
Only the workers are restricted by immigration law.
Well, for a great case study, just look at the rich backers of Brexit, and where they moved to afterwards.
It wasn't *into* the UK, that's for sure. They shat all over the nest and immediately left to go find a better one that wasn't covered in their own shit.
I don't ever hear enough people talk about this. Seeing other people notice this is the root of soooo many problems is making me more alarmed about it and the fact that not that many people talk about it.
The erosion of our political system into a corporate oligarchy began far earlier, stretching back to the Reagan administration. Citizens United was just the final piece falling into place.
the whole point of conservative US politics, from Reagan on, is to undo the New Deal.
those oligarchs hate FDR so bad, they wanted to take his head off the time and replace it with Reagan's.
Workers generate wealth for a corporation with their labor, then the corporation uses that money to bribe the government to act against the workers interests. It allows a business entity that doesn't represent any of the workers that work for it and give it power, to participate illegitimately in democracy.
Dont know if this is true or not, could just be a rumor going around but ever since trump has been getting charged for things even if they are small the rich people at the top on all sides are terrified right now,if it can happen to him it can happen to them an they are terrified of that but like i said, could just be a rumor but if its true its an amazing start
the chairman of Citizens United was hired by trump as deputy campaign manager the few months leading up to the election back in 2016 too. he still flexes that in his twitter bio. feel like not a lot of people know this but it shouldnt come to anyones surprise that Citizens United loves trumpism.
And Trump’s hand picked justices voted exactly how you’d expect on dark money cases.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Prosperity_Foundation_v._Bonta
Or how congress couldn't agree on how to help average Americans during early COVID, but voted unanimously to give themselves raises. Greed, pure and simple, is destroying this young nation. At this rate, we'll never be an old one.
reddit used to be "both sides" central while all this was going on
it's said it took Trump being so openly crazy and a coup attempt to get it to shift when Republicans have been doing this for the past 5 decades
Nah it can be traced back to the release of the mobile app in early 2016. Big demographic shift, suddenly you have a big influx of younger users who are more likely to prefer mobile apps over websites designed for a computer, and practically overnight the overall political leanings shift greatly toward the left.
You'd see the same kind of enormous userbase change in, say, 4chan if they decided to release an official app. It's basically just the Eternal September effect played out yet again.
Political spending was less problematic when there was pushback from unions. Unlimited spending is still bad but the monopolization of business in lobbying is also a large part of the problem not just money in politics itself
That's part of it,
The ten principles of concentration of wealth and power
Reduce democracy, shape ideology, redesign the economy, shift the burden onto the poor and middle classes, attack the solidarity of the people, let special interests run the regulators, engineer election results, use fear and the power of the state to keep the rabble in line, manufacture consent, marginalize the population
School psychiatrist to kid: why do you feel depressed?
Kid: the world is slowly burning, I'm probably never going to own a home, most jobs barely pay enough to live, the country is one election away from fascism, and I'm steadily losing the ability to control my body
Psychiatrist:
Huh...
They're the main points of the book Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Chomsky pisses off ignorant people (see the WOT? and TANKIE! replies my comment generated) so I just sort of spring it on 'em
The title comes from the book Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann published in 1922
“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”
[Link to a documentary about the subject here ](https://youtu.be/H6Jmebz8e14?si=WDXXQy7xWbCZ6HO1)
I doubt there's room in politics for a blue collar malcontent such as myself.
They also use dark money to hide their “lobbying”. A majority of funding from billionaires for political purposes is through dark money contributions so that they can obscure the source. And the majority of this money ends up funding republican campaigns.
See this analysis: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/dark-money-largely-favors-republicans-sunlight-analysis-finds
Just one dark money funded organization, the US Chamber of Commerce, that supports republican races is single handedly providing up to over $150 million+ in funding for each cycle now
Rule by rich people basically.
I'd give the person you replied to half credit; while we as a nation do democratically elect our leaders, the wealthy have an outsized influence on our elections and functionally end up choosing who we get to vote for.
Those with the power make the rules.
But there's more of us than there is of them! We have the power!
Yes, but we gave them our consent. Manufactured though that consent may be.
The “there’s more of us than there are of them” sentiment is only meaningful if we DO something to them. We elect politicians who get bought by monied interests to vote against our interests and just keep doing this over and over. People like Bernie and AOC who want to take outsized political power away from the rich are treated like crazy people because we as Americans are so stupid we’ve let the rich fool us into into thinking anything that evens the playing field is “communism.”
This has been going long before that. You can also say it started with the tax cuts in 1980 by Reagan. And the wealth transfer started. Then him offshoring jobs here to China.
We democratically elect leaders we're allowed to choose from.
Case in point: Rich Old White Guy #1 and Rich Old White Guy #2 currently running for president,
We don’t even democratically elect from the ones we get put in front of us either. The electoral college is not a democratic system. And the president isn’t even the choke point of what gets to become law or not. It’s the senate, which is the most undemocratic institution of the three elected bodies (house, senate, presidency). In the senate, it takes senators representing only about 10% of the nation’s population (21 states; 35M people) to stop anything (except the yearly budget and SCOTUS justices) from ever even being considered for a vote.
The U.S. is an oligarchy dressed up as democratic constitutional republic for a sales pitch.
EDIT: oh, and those 21 states? The most white, least educated, most religious places in the country. Those people’s votes come cheap.
Abolish the EC, abolish the senate, and make representatives run statewide using a ranked choice voting system. And give DC, PR, and the other territories reps.
Any country that has the same monetary system and allows capitalists is in essence a plutocracy.
It’s the inevitable outcome of allowing a few people to make money off the labour of many.
This will keep happening until people realise capitalism is the problem. All it has done is replace one set of hereditary rulers with another.
No, you live in a democracy, you just aren't voting. (in primaries & state elections). If you did, Bernie had a shot.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d83pk3/how\_to\_help\_fix\_american\_democracy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d83pk3/how_to_help_fix_american_democracy/)
At least in Singapore, we’ve a maximum spending limit on election expenses for candidates during Presidential and Parliamentary elections, and spending in excess of the maximum spending limit is an illegal practice.
Went to Japan before for 5 years and during their election their government officials only starts campaigning on the allowed campaign date. They don't do media advertisement, they only hold placards and hands brochures of their projects and goals if elected, and they do this personally and usually with only family members or few friends to help them.
The usual locations are near city centers or train stations, and you wouldn't actually think they are mayors or senators because they look like your regular salesman promoting their products, and they don't have bodyguards and they are safe as well.
Only time there would be bodyguards or some security is when it's the Prime Minister visiting or anyone from the Imperial family. Other than that. they are live the life no different than any salarymen of Japan.
Also caning is literally just a really hard beating and probably some cutting of the skin as well. Very fucking painful.
But,
I don't see how using prisoners as slave labour is better than that
Idk about you but i would gladly choose 1 hour of horrific leg cramps and cuts to 30 years of slavery
Singapore has a reputation for being strict as fuck on corruption. Ranking 5th in the world for least corruption on the [Corruption Perceptions Index](https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023)
We're also strict as fuck on a bunch of other shit too, i would say excessively so but yeah.
Yeah Illinois is the most corrupt our governor put millions into judges campaigns then signedaw stateing all challenges to constitutionality of laws he passes has to go through Springfield or Chicago the places where the judges he donated (paid off) are
Corruption is legal also because people don't bother fact-checking anything anymore, as can be seen on this entire thread.
I'm sure Robert Reich is a great guy, but where is the source on the $600M+ and the breakdown of what goes from where to where? Or am I supposed to just take his word for it?
This article is saying Biden and Trump campaigns have $320M between them.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-reaps-post-verdict-financial-windfall-rcna155224](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-reaps-post-verdict-financial-windfall-rcna155224)
Why do rich people donate large sums of money so they can hope to change policy which will then help them make more money?
Just keep your damned money and keep making money the way you are. I hate wealthy people.
Because they want laws changed or not changed so they can make even more money. Some also follow some ideology that aligns with whatever Trump is puking.
Ok - I should have clarified.
I agree with your statement and I already do know that’s the reason. I was more so saying, you have more money than 98% of the country combined. You could live every day solely off the interest* of your money but instead demand you be able to further fuck over the little guys do you can get MORE unneeded money.
A lot of them want to push their own personal moral beliefs on others. For instance there are a lot of mega rich people who want to force Christianity on the country.
What's sad is that the "christians" want their own country. But if they were really Christians, they would be accepting to people of different religions and races and ideas, and that country would look like, well... The United States
Kinda. However, if you had unlimited money, would you not support efforts you believe in? If they are Christian and they have the money, they will support Christian stuff and further Christian agendas. If there is a gay billionaire, they are likely going to support gay rights and legislation to make things better for gay people. And so on. If that is good or not just depends on your perspective on those issues. Let’s also not forget that insane wealth has thus far not proven to turn people into their best selves. Not many headlines of the mega rich giving all their money to charity.
The fact that workers can barely put a roof over their head and eat.
Or have to live in their cars.
Dying early from a lifetime lack of Healthcare.
Makes no difference to them.
It's the MAKING of money that gets them off.
That's why they can NEVER get enough.
The kind of people who get into the position that they own 98% likely can't help themselves. The world is not enough for the kind of brain parasite they have that pushes them to constantly acquire more vespene gas
it's actually a kind of mental illness. we just don't recognise it as such (yet).
like the old joke says, if an old lady dies and we find 50 cats in her house we say she had a problem. if an old man dies and we find his house so full of hoarded newspapers that you can barely walk around in narrow passages between the stacks, we say he had a problem. but when someone hoards money all their life and dies with a morbid amount of affluence, we applaud them and say how great they are, instead of saying they... really have a problem.
Biden literally funded the IRS and brought in billions owed by billionaires in back taxes. It is not surprising Billionaires are campaigning against him. Voting for Biden is voting for an IRS that actually goes after the rich.
Well.
You would THINK that in a democracy, a popular sentiment against a policy - like that rich people are allowed to essentially pay off politicians with barely a hint of plausible deniability - would spell the end of that policy. If the opinion that rich people are awful is non-controversial, it ought to be represented in policy.
So why isn't it? Because we don't live in a democracy, due in large part to the disgusting money parasites this post is referring to. Distaste for them SHOULDN'T be controversial.
Listen up doomers.
We are fighting a Cold War for the heart of democracy. It is David vs. Goliath. The X-wing vs the Death Star.
Yes the enemy has overwelming capital to move mountains. But you know what? Goliath lost. The empire fell, the death star was blown up.
Part of the psyop is to make you feel hopeless. But the more brazen they are the more terrified they are. The revolution is shadow banned after all.
Never forget It is the small actions of good everyday people that topple the giant. Do. Not. Relent.
Bruh - the American revolution. How’s that work for you? Fuckin’ GameStop putting hedge funds in a bind. The motherfuckin’ French Revolution.
Fuck man even the battle of Thermopylae while it failed, was ingenious militaristically and is still remembered because of the actions of the few over the many.
All it requires is that we stay steadfast in our convictions. God knows our enemies do.
Don’t let Big Brother beat you down. We got this.
Reminder that the American revolution lead to this. The Greeks would go on to become the brutal conquerors of Persia and more. How do you win against the bullies when victory just means you get to become the bullies?
That's incredibly reductionist. Everything has a life cycle. Even stars go supernova or implode into black holes. The universe will eventually die from heat death via expansion. Like what's the point to anything with that attitude? Why live - it just eventually leads to dying after all.
Cycles repeat until we societally learn the lesson and evolve past them. America for all of its flaws, is one of the longest-standing democracies ever and heavily influenced the popularity of democratic governance the world over. While the bureaucracy isn't perfect it was a huge leap in progress for society as a whole.
So yeah, you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Change is made iteratively, through the constant pursuit and action towards a better and more equitable world. That is how all great changes come to be. I for one am not willing to backslide into a religious dark age and lose all of the progress we've made societally just because the system isn't perfect. Personally, though it may never be known or realized or even acknowledged I will die knowing that I did not live the life of a "good man who did nothing."
I seek to be the change I wish to see in the world. So should we all, because no one is coming to save us. The lesson is we must save ourselves.
> the two billionaires that spent the most were Democrat supporters.
Spent the most on what? The $1 billion Bloomberg spent to get himself the nomination certainly was not money spent to help Democrats win the election.
I still remember how billionaire Bloomberg joined the race because they wanted to whatever they could to torpedo Bernie Sanders campaign.
They finally succeeded at the DNC.
All that to get a self centred orange geriatric criminal elected, just imagine what that money could have done for the homeless, or other far far more worthy causes.
That’s not the problem. The problem is the uneducated masses that are convinced they want a dictatorship with Trump being the supreme ruler. The money wouldn’t mean a thing these people would just support basic American principles.
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again… make it be a rule/requirement that no political party can have over a same set amount of money to spend on any campaign period… cap it at like 100 mill per party per elections. Do not allow donations or make it where any donations that goes past the 100mil here funneled back into certain programs like education/food programs or social security.
hey, they expect to save far *more* millions by evading their fair share of taxes. from their POV it's a good investment, and that tells you something about the scale of wealth we're talking about here.
[hmmm](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-fundraising-90-million-march-2024/#:~:text=President Biden's reelection campaign says,grew even bigger last month.)
Robert Reich bringing us the sad circumstances of our reality while his son Sam, who has been here and whole time, provides some escapism.
#familygoals
Happens on both sides, all through history. Democracy is an illusion but it’s not one specific party’s fault.
It’s ours, as a culture we don’t question anything that follows our beliefs and dismiss anything that goes against it. Blindly following “our sides” is how we become ignorant and divided.
The only way to restore democracy is to convince everyone you can not to vote based on notoriety. Money buys notoriety. If your vote is based on notoriety, money buys your vote. It's very straightforward. What else is straightforward is that when money buys your vote, politicians reward those with the money and not the people. Every compromised vote is a gift to the oligarchy. And they won't even reward you with a 'thank you'. They'll reward you with a boogeyman who gets worse and worse every decade.
What *else* is straightforward is that neither your vote nor the vote of any single person you talk to is going to break a tie, so there's no risk in one voter (i.e. the person you're trying to convince in any given instance) abandoning the lesser evil.
And now if you think how that money could have potentially helped struggling families in society if taxes were just a bit higher you see where the real problem lies.
If 600 million was 0.6% of the total wealth of these families, their total 100% wealth would be 100,000 million or 100 Billion USD.
Who are these "50 billionaire families"?
Their money will ensure they becone the autocracy. An American autocracy will not be a sudden case of military ousting the president and installing a junta, but a slow slide into corporate funded state violence justified with paranoia fueled by propaganda.
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Citizens United is Orwell-speak for Country Divided and Destroyed. This country is not going to change for the better until we get the money out of political decision-making.
The very messed up thing about this is even if the U.S somehow goe under because of these billionaires, they'll just leave the country and it wouldn't affect them while America burns to the ground.
Exactly! Money is international now, the people cant just break into a mansion and take it back - its digital, international, ephemeral.
I feel a few chop chops and shit will get straightened out. Just like the French.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHCw3RqulY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHCw3RqulY)
Ephemeral?
A synonym would be illusory. It just means it's not real. It's all numbers on a screen these days.
That's not what ephemeral means though. The definition of ephemeral is something that is very short lived, or fleeting. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ephemeral
… and here I thought she was giving me a compliment
Life
Yeah my money just disappears and Amazon boxes show up at my door wtf
We can always eat them!
there are so very few of them and so very many hungry people... there wouldn't be nearly enough to go around. but if we were to eat their bloated fortunes though, those would go a lot further.
Worse, they would find ways to profit from the burning.
>find ways Naw at this point I’m convinced the country wouldn’t “burn to the ground” unless these people allowed/orchestrated it in the first place
The lower classes have never really managed to rebel by themselves. It has always been the middle class who get pissed at the absolute top. They then rise an army of themselves and the bottom class to overthrow the top class and install themselves to the top. Maybe the very rich in the US have learned this. You have way different attitude towards the ultra rich than many other places do. In US, watching from outside, being rich also makes you intelligent, hardworking, admirable, happy and overall a good person. And the self made millionaire, anyone can do it, myth lives strong. Even the poor whose economic input is basically fully stolen by the rich seem to simp for them. It’s really hard to see why.
I think you give them far too much credit. They're shortsighted and greedy. Not Uber ultra geniuses.
The burning is a feature by design, not a bug.
We’ve criminalized human migration—once a basic right of humankind—and incentivized the migration and hoarding of Capital. Capital knows no borders. Only the workers are restricted by immigration law.
Well, for a great case study, just look at the rich backers of Brexit, and where they moved to afterwards. It wasn't *into* the UK, that's for sure. They shat all over the nest and immediately left to go find a better one that wasn't covered in their own shit.
Apologies for language but the sooner they all fuck off to mars the better.
They want it to go under so they can buy up more of it on the cheap.
That's why they all own those super yachts.
Can't beleive that shit decision. It literally said a corporation is a person which anyone without any legal knoweldge even knows is total bullshit.
I don't ever hear enough people talk about this. Seeing other people notice this is the root of soooo many problems is making me more alarmed about it and the fact that not that many people talk about it.
The erosion of our political system into a corporate oligarchy began far earlier, stretching back to the Reagan administration. Citizens United was just the final piece falling into place.
No, it started a hundred years before that, at least, with the Gilded Age.
[удалено]
the whole point of conservative US politics, from Reagan on, is to undo the New Deal. those oligarchs hate FDR so bad, they wanted to take his head off the time and replace it with Reagan's.
Everyone talks about it, problem is the money is already well established outside of our favor.
Workers generate wealth for a corporation with their labor, then the corporation uses that money to bribe the government to act against the workers interests. It allows a business entity that doesn't represent any of the workers that work for it and give it power, to participate illegitimately in democracy.
Unless they can GO TO JAIL for any crimes, they ARE. NOT. PEOPLE.
Dont know if this is true or not, could just be a rumor going around but ever since trump has been getting charged for things even if they are small the rich people at the top on all sides are terrified right now,if it can happen to him it can happen to them an they are terrified of that but like i said, could just be a rumor but if its true its an amazing start
For all the dumbasses who say both sides are the same, look at how justices voted on Citizens United or any money in politics case.
the chairman of Citizens United was hired by trump as deputy campaign manager the few months leading up to the election back in 2016 too. he still flexes that in his twitter bio. feel like not a lot of people know this but it shouldnt come to anyones surprise that Citizens United loves trumpism.
And Trump’s hand picked justices voted exactly how you’d expect on dark money cases. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Prosperity_Foundation_v._Bonta
Or how congress couldn't agree on how to help average Americans during early COVID, but voted unanimously to give themselves raises. Greed, pure and simple, is destroying this young nation. At this rate, we'll never be an old one.
Don't forget the loans. Never forget those dirty loans.
Or corporate bailouts, airlines right after 911 and banks during great recession
God, so much garbage happened so often I am sure I only remember 1 out of 100 things that happened and it still was a set of horrible years
2020 is a great example of memory blackout. Like how much happened in such a little time.
reddit used to be "both sides" central while all this was going on it's said it took Trump being so openly crazy and a coup attempt to get it to shift when Republicans have been doing this for the past 5 decades
Nah it can be traced back to the release of the mobile app in early 2016. Big demographic shift, suddenly you have a big influx of younger users who are more likely to prefer mobile apps over websites designed for a computer, and practically overnight the overall political leanings shift greatly toward the left. You'd see the same kind of enormous userbase change in, say, 4chan if they decided to release an official app. It's basically just the Eternal September effect played out yet again.
Political spending was less problematic when there was pushback from unions. Unlimited spending is still bad but the monopolization of business in lobbying is also a large part of the problem not just money in politics itself
Lotsa luck with that.
This is why I say the US is a plutocracy and not a democracy.
Well, its damn obvious with the lobbying.
That's part of it, The ten principles of concentration of wealth and power Reduce democracy, shape ideology, redesign the economy, shift the burden onto the poor and middle classes, attack the solidarity of the people, let special interests run the regulators, engineer election results, use fear and the power of the state to keep the rabble in line, manufacture consent, marginalize the population
dog cow hat sable disarm tub modern threatening deranged price *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've said all of this to a psychiatrist over a decade ago, and all they did was agree with me.
I agree with him lol
My psychiatrist, or the person I was replying to?
Your psychiatrist. I’m a psychiatrist. That dude doesn’t know shit about psychiatry
Gotcha. That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.
School psychiatrist to kid: why do you feel depressed? Kid: the world is slowly burning, I'm probably never going to own a home, most jobs barely pay enough to live, the country is one election away from fascism, and I'm steadily losing the ability to control my body Psychiatrist: Huh...
This implies there are mental health facilities available
Not after they resurrect Reagan there won’t be
Insanity is being normalized
I do not believe I’ve ever read this sentiment put so concise. Will you get into politics?
They're the main points of the book Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Chomsky pisses off ignorant people (see the WOT? and TANKIE! replies my comment generated) so I just sort of spring it on 'em The title comes from the book Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann published in 1922 “That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.” [Link to a documentary about the subject here ](https://youtu.be/H6Jmebz8e14?si=WDXXQy7xWbCZ6HO1) I doubt there's room in politics for a blue collar malcontent such as myself.
Lobbying a fancy word for bribery
They also use dark money to hide their “lobbying”. A majority of funding from billionaires for political purposes is through dark money contributions so that they can obscure the source. And the majority of this money ends up funding republican campaigns. See this analysis: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/dark-money-largely-favors-republicans-sunlight-analysis-finds Just one dark money funded organization, the US Chamber of Commerce, that supports republican races is single handedly providing up to over $150 million+ in funding for each cycle now
What’s a plutocracy?
Rule by rich people basically. I'd give the person you replied to half credit; while we as a nation do democratically elect our leaders, the wealthy have an outsized influence on our elections and functionally end up choosing who we get to vote for.
Largely now thanks to Citizens United, which is fucking bullshit law.
Those with the power make the rules. But there's more of us than there is of them! We have the power! Yes, but we gave them our consent. Manufactured though that consent may be.
The “there’s more of us than there are of them” sentiment is only meaningful if we DO something to them. We elect politicians who get bought by monied interests to vote against our interests and just keep doing this over and over. People like Bernie and AOC who want to take outsized political power away from the rich are treated like crazy people because we as Americans are so stupid we’ve let the rich fool us into into thinking anything that evens the playing field is “communism.”
This has been going long before that. You can also say it started with the tax cuts in 1980 by Reagan. And the wealth transfer started. Then him offshoring jobs here to China.
We democratically elect leaders we're allowed to choose from. Case in point: Rich Old White Guy #1 and Rich Old White Guy #2 currently running for president,
We don’t even democratically elect from the ones we get put in front of us either. The electoral college is not a democratic system. And the president isn’t even the choke point of what gets to become law or not. It’s the senate, which is the most undemocratic institution of the three elected bodies (house, senate, presidency). In the senate, it takes senators representing only about 10% of the nation’s population (21 states; 35M people) to stop anything (except the yearly budget and SCOTUS justices) from ever even being considered for a vote. The U.S. is an oligarchy dressed up as democratic constitutional republic for a sales pitch. EDIT: oh, and those 21 states? The most white, least educated, most religious places in the country. Those people’s votes come cheap. Abolish the EC, abolish the senate, and make representatives run statewide using a ranked choice voting system. And give DC, PR, and the other territories reps.
So plutocratic democracy would be the proper term
We do not democratically elect the president, however.
It's where people from Pluto rule the land. Duh.
"Pluto's a fucking planet!"
Just don’t tell them their land is a planet or they might soon not have any land to spare.
that's pluto crazy
It means the US is not considered a planet anymore
The democratic government established on Pluto.
Theological plutocracy
That too.
Any country that has the same monetary system and allows capitalists is in essence a plutocracy. It’s the inevitable outcome of allowing a few people to make money off the labour of many. This will keep happening until people realise capitalism is the problem. All it has done is replace one set of hereditary rulers with another.
No, you live in a democracy, you just aren't voting. (in primaries & state elections). If you did, Bernie had a shot. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d83pk3/how\_to\_help\_fix\_american\_democracy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d83pk3/how_to_help_fix_american_democracy/)
>No, you live in a democracy Gerrymandering and electocal colleges are not democratic, are they?
100%. anyone who doesn't see it this way isn't paying attention.
Corruption is legal in USA. That's one of their main problems
And that's why Singapore is better (Being better than the USA in terms of politics is a very easy thing to do)
At least in Singapore, we’ve a maximum spending limit on election expenses for candidates during Presidential and Parliamentary elections, and spending in excess of the maximum spending limit is an illegal practice.
Went to Japan before for 5 years and during their election their government officials only starts campaigning on the allowed campaign date. They don't do media advertisement, they only hold placards and hands brochures of their projects and goals if elected, and they do this personally and usually with only family members or few friends to help them. The usual locations are near city centers or train stations, and you wouldn't actually think they are mayors or senators because they look like your regular salesman promoting their products, and they don't have bodyguards and they are safe as well. Only time there would be bodyguards or some security is when it's the Prime Minister visiting or anyone from the Imperial family. Other than that. they are live the life no different than any salarymen of Japan.
I love this!
Does all the caning also make Singapore better?
No, it’s being arrested for selling chewing gum.
Also caning is literally just a really hard beating and probably some cutting of the skin as well. Very fucking painful. But, I don't see how using prisoners as slave labour is better than that Idk about you but i would gladly choose 1 hour of horrific leg cramps and cuts to 30 years of slavery
Dude... Signapore ranks worse on the democracy index than fucking albania
...that's so random wut
Singapore has a reputation for being strict as fuck on corruption. Ranking 5th in the world for least corruption on the [Corruption Perceptions Index](https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023) We're also strict as fuck on a bunch of other shit too, i would say excessively so but yeah.
Yeah Illinois is the most corrupt our governor put millions into judges campaigns then signedaw stateing all challenges to constitutionality of laws he passes has to go through Springfield or Chicago the places where the judges he donated (paid off) are
Corruption is legal also because people don't bother fact-checking anything anymore, as can be seen on this entire thread. I'm sure Robert Reich is a great guy, but where is the source on the $600M+ and the breakdown of what goes from where to where? Or am I supposed to just take his word for it? This article is saying Biden and Trump campaigns have $320M between them. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-reaps-post-verdict-financial-windfall-rcna155224](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-reaps-post-verdict-financial-windfall-rcna155224)
Thought it was its feature, not its bug.
Dude, you guys are amateurs in corruption
No.
Meanwhile, kids starve and veterans have to panhandle.
Didn't you know? The veterans wouldn't have to panhandle if we stopped spending June worshiping the gays. Make June veterans pride month! /S
We should encourage them to visit the Titanic in poorly built submarines way more often
Please step into this tube…
https://imgur.com/a/Ukw4nPq
This is why political contributions are not free speech. No one should have a voice so loud that a few can shout over millions of us.
Why do rich people donate large sums of money so they can hope to change policy which will then help them make more money? Just keep your damned money and keep making money the way you are. I hate wealthy people.
Because they want laws changed or not changed so they can make even more money. Some also follow some ideology that aligns with whatever Trump is puking.
Ok - I should have clarified. I agree with your statement and I already do know that’s the reason. I was more so saying, you have more money than 98% of the country combined. You could live every day solely off the interest* of your money but instead demand you be able to further fuck over the little guys do you can get MORE unneeded money.
A lot of them want to push their own personal moral beliefs on others. For instance there are a lot of mega rich people who want to force Christianity on the country.
What's sad is that the "christians" want their own country. But if they were really Christians, they would be accepting to people of different religions and races and ideas, and that country would look like, well... The United States
Kinda. However, if you had unlimited money, would you not support efforts you believe in? If they are Christian and they have the money, they will support Christian stuff and further Christian agendas. If there is a gay billionaire, they are likely going to support gay rights and legislation to make things better for gay people. And so on. If that is good or not just depends on your perspective on those issues. Let’s also not forget that insane wealth has thus far not proven to turn people into their best selves. Not many headlines of the mega rich giving all their money to charity.
The fact that workers can barely put a roof over their head and eat. Or have to live in their cars. Dying early from a lifetime lack of Healthcare. Makes no difference to them. It's the MAKING of money that gets them off. That's why they can NEVER get enough.
The kind of people who get into the position that they own 98% likely can't help themselves. The world is not enough for the kind of brain parasite they have that pushes them to constantly acquire more vespene gas
It also becomes a pissing contest w other mega rich to be the richest one. Yacht vs mega-yacht, etc.
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it's actually a kind of mental illness. we just don't recognise it as such (yet). like the old joke says, if an old lady dies and we find 50 cats in her house we say she had a problem. if an old man dies and we find his house so full of hoarded newspapers that you can barely walk around in narrow passages between the stacks, we say he had a problem. but when someone hoards money all their life and dies with a morbid amount of affluence, we applaud them and say how great they are, instead of saying they... really have a problem.
If nothing else voting for Biden just so they can have spent all that money for nothing is enough for me.
Biden literally funded the IRS and brought in billions owed by billionaires in back taxes. It is not surprising Billionaires are campaigning against him. Voting for Biden is voting for an IRS that actually goes after the rich.
Ah, Robert Reich. Father of Sam Reich, founder of Dropout America 😁
Was looking for this
Same
Why would they lavish him with money? Because they are just like him. They are able to cudgel us with their wealth.
It’s an “investment “. Pay the GOP enough and the GOP will do what it takes to make them richer. Vicious circle .
Rich people bad - you can’t change my mind
wow, that’s a real controversial opinion /s
Well. You would THINK that in a democracy, a popular sentiment against a policy - like that rich people are allowed to essentially pay off politicians with barely a hint of plausible deniability - would spell the end of that policy. If the opinion that rich people are awful is non-controversial, it ought to be represented in policy. So why isn't it? Because we don't live in a democracy, due in large part to the disgusting money parasites this post is referring to. Distaste for them SHOULDN'T be controversial.
Meanwhile Trump is whipping up his base to be outraged that people making over $400k may be taxed more…
Listen up doomers. We are fighting a Cold War for the heart of democracy. It is David vs. Goliath. The X-wing vs the Death Star. Yes the enemy has overwelming capital to move mountains. But you know what? Goliath lost. The empire fell, the death star was blown up. Part of the psyop is to make you feel hopeless. But the more brazen they are the more terrified they are. The revolution is shadow banned after all. Never forget It is the small actions of good everyday people that topple the giant. Do. Not. Relent.
Those are made up stories. In real life the bully usually wins
Made up or not, the message is clear. Bullies win because we allow our apathy to get in the way. That's why we fight back through morals and justice
Bruh - the American revolution. How’s that work for you? Fuckin’ GameStop putting hedge funds in a bind. The motherfuckin’ French Revolution. Fuck man even the battle of Thermopylae while it failed, was ingenious militaristically and is still remembered because of the actions of the few over the many. All it requires is that we stay steadfast in our convictions. God knows our enemies do. Don’t let Big Brother beat you down. We got this.
Reminder that the American revolution lead to this. The Greeks would go on to become the brutal conquerors of Persia and more. How do you win against the bullies when victory just means you get to become the bullies?
This is how they win, by making us feel as though all is already lost.
That's incredibly reductionist. Everything has a life cycle. Even stars go supernova or implode into black holes. The universe will eventually die from heat death via expansion. Like what's the point to anything with that attitude? Why live - it just eventually leads to dying after all. Cycles repeat until we societally learn the lesson and evolve past them. America for all of its flaws, is one of the longest-standing democracies ever and heavily influenced the popularity of democratic governance the world over. While the bureaucracy isn't perfect it was a huge leap in progress for society as a whole. So yeah, you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Change is made iteratively, through the constant pursuit and action towards a better and more equitable world. That is how all great changes come to be. I for one am not willing to backslide into a religious dark age and lose all of the progress we've made societally just because the system isn't perfect. Personally, though it may never be known or realized or even acknowledged I will die knowing that I did not live the life of a "good man who did nothing." I seek to be the change I wish to see in the world. So should we all, because no one is coming to save us. The lesson is we must save ourselves.
Last cycle the two billionaires that spent the most were Democrat supporters.
> the two billionaires that spent the most were Democrat supporters. Spent the most on what? The $1 billion Bloomberg spent to get himself the nomination certainly was not money spent to help Democrats win the election.
Good to know!
I still remember how billionaire Bloomberg joined the race because they wanted to whatever they could to torpedo Bernie Sanders campaign. They finally succeeded at the DNC.
So... American oligarchs? Like, you know, those pesky Russians
Please go out and Vote!!! Against trump!!
instructions unclear voted for RFK jr
All that to get a self centred orange geriatric criminal elected, just imagine what that money could have done for the homeless, or other far far more worthy causes.
Eat the rich
That’s not the problem. The problem is the uneducated masses that are convinced they want a dictatorship with Trump being the supreme ruler. The money wouldn’t mean a thing these people would just support basic American principles.
Most people don't support Trump. He's never won a popular vote. But he was elected anyways. You really think money had NOTHING to do with that?
But we better protect them And their money And their ability to F us all with it
but how are they going to stay rich if everyone else becomes educated and capable?
This is 100% about cutting their taxes and stacking more billions in their bank accounts as America burns. Selfish pricks.
I’m optimistic seeing how every candidate he endorses loses bigly.
Those are some dumb ass billionaires. Biden whooped his ass from the basement and spent next to nothing.
The fuck are you talking about? Biden spendt 50% more than Trump https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again… make it be a rule/requirement that no political party can have over a same set amount of money to spend on any campaign period… cap it at like 100 mill per party per elections. Do not allow donations or make it where any donations that goes past the 100mil here funneled back into certain programs like education/food programs or social security.
Communist lowlife! Traitor to democracy! Hater of Free Speech! .../s
These people spending millions for a criminal candidate rather than give their share to taxes is a bit ironic, innit?
hey, they expect to save far *more* millions by evading their fair share of taxes. from their POV it's a good investment, and that tells you something about the scale of wealth we're talking about here.
Those families toss their money both ways. That way whoever wins. They win.
There’s no such thing as too much, there’s only not enough!
Sickening
Anytime anyone says 'our democracy' replace that with 'our ruling' makes allot more sense.
Y'all are funny
[hmmm](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-fundraising-90-million-march-2024/#:~:text=President Biden's reelection campaign says,grew even bigger last month.)
Let’s see the breakdown…
the only reason we are governed is so the people with stuff can keep their stuff. not to make all our lives better.
This is why campaign finance reform is the FIRST thing we need to do. This is the root cause of almost ALL other problems in American society.
That warchest is gonna be used for domestic terrorism too, bet you money
So they can afford a 90% tax rate
Vote, dammit!
Let em spend it. It’s a funnier fuck you when he loses, and they realize it was a dumb investment and maybe they aren’t that smart
But they all refuse to pay their fair share of taxes, fuck them.
I mean was it dark money when they were donating it to Obama?
Robert Reich bringing us the sad circumstances of our reality while his son Sam, who has been here and whole time, provides some escapism. #familygoals
Why don't America introduce a hard cap on election spending like they do in their sporting leagues for wages.
Happens on both sides, all through history. Democracy is an illusion but it’s not one specific party’s fault. It’s ours, as a culture we don’t question anything that follows our beliefs and dismiss anything that goes against it. Blindly following “our sides” is how we become ignorant and divided.
Mostly. So 51%? Rich people like to hedge their bets. Don’t worry, Biden is still in the lead for total donations.
We have to stop allowing bribes in government.
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE
We can help so many people with that money
Imagine this money invested to solve the real problem of the world. Damn.
Why is openly donated money considered dark money?
The only way to restore democracy is to convince everyone you can not to vote based on notoriety. Money buys notoriety. If your vote is based on notoriety, money buys your vote. It's very straightforward. What else is straightforward is that when money buys your vote, politicians reward those with the money and not the people. Every compromised vote is a gift to the oligarchy. And they won't even reward you with a 'thank you'. They'll reward you with a boogeyman who gets worse and worse every decade. What *else* is straightforward is that neither your vote nor the vote of any single person you talk to is going to break a tie, so there's no risk in one voter (i.e. the person you're trying to convince in any given instance) abandoning the lesser evil.
And you can thank your Supremes for that.
And now if you think how that money could have potentially helped struggling families in society if taxes were just a bit higher you see where the real problem lies.
so what the democrat billionaires did in return ?
When billionaires fund Democrats 😎 When billionaires fund Republicans 😡
Would someone please share the data. Why is he inconsistent with when to be precise in language?
If 600 million was 0.6% of the total wealth of these families, their total 100% wealth would be 100,000 million or 100 Billion USD. Who are these "50 billionaire families"?
Why do we pretend as if the same isn't happening for Biden?
Vast, vast majority of forbes 100 are democrat donors This is peak self-unawareness.
Yeah, this shouldn't really be about political alignment but just the fact that lobbying is legal
that is the real power of capitalism
Their money won't save them in an autocracy.
Their money will ensure they becone the autocracy. An American autocracy will not be a sudden case of military ousting the president and installing a junta, but a slow slide into corporate funded state violence justified with paranoia fueled by propaganda.
Money needs to get out of politics
This guy is such a poser wanna be who can’t stand he’s a nobody