...of the #MagnaCarta 2), which only applied to barrons and the clergy, the #US despite #Reconstruction and all the Amendments was never able to really overcome systemic racism and plutocratic discrimination. In fact, ever since #CitizensUnitedVsFEC, the pendulum has been swinging in the opposite direction, so far culminating in the overturning of #RoeVsWade.
...broadcasters and politicians 👈who should know better."
What is needed, IMO, is to address this terrible angst of the white lower and upper-class male and give him new purpose.
What really must come to pass on a macroeconomic level, in order for this to happen, is to #AbolishBillionaires through a #WealthTax * and make higher education (again) universal, among other things like overturning #CitizensUnitedVsFEC and encoding that..
"I do not believe in seizure. There are better alternatives, including regulation, taxation, and competition."
In principle, I agree. However, since last year, I did not believe that this is possible anymore in the US. It truly is a #plutocracy (I've written several threads on this during the past year. A tipping point was #CitizensUnitedVsFEC.*)
Elmo has become the most powerful fascist in history.
E.g. just #Starlink:
Hm, also ich sehe noch gewaltige (positive) Unterschiede zwischen der de-facto Plutokratie USA seit #CitizensUnitedVsFEC und der #Bundesrepublik.
Vergleicht man allerdings mit der mit viel mehr plebiszitären, ur-demokratischen Elementen ausgestatteten Schweiz, dann sieht man, was mindestens noch machbar wäre für eben wieder mehr #Demokratie i.e.S.
Excellent recap of #Donald#Trump's (#TFG) CHARACTER and his threat to NATIONAL SECURITY by his former Joint Chief of Staff, among others.
(done by @MidasTouch.)
Really worth watching, even if you have been following current affairs all along.
🤦♀️ Trump's gullibles must be footing the bills here.
' #Trump is suing a former MI6 officer & intel consultancy he founded, high court records in Eng show.
TFG, who is mired in lawsuits in his own country, is bringing a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence & founder Christopher Steele, who previously ran the secret intel service’s Russia desk.
A 2-day hearing for the legal action is set to start on 16 Oct" #legal
...on the DeadBirdSite, the Conservatives, in particular the Federalist Society, put their plan in motion to capture #SCOTUS. And to fulfill what they set out to do in 1971: turn the US in a plutocracy. This happened with #CitizensUnitedVsFEC, and others. The climax was #TFG in the WH. He was never supposed to lose in 2020. He probably wouldn't, hadn't it been for the #pandemic
Anyway, out of curiosity, have you watched the #Ultra series by #rachelmaddow?...
/s: Tja warum wohl...
Bei seiner Intelligenz hat er das alles schon vorhersehen müssen.
Wenn man mal die Lesebrille abnimmt und richtig nach USA blickt und insbesondere in die Zeit um #CitizensUnitedVsFEC* , lässt sich ein reaktionärer, in Teilen faschistoider Masterplan nicht mehr verleugnen.
Nicht nur Viktor Orban hat gute Verbindungen zu US-Kreisen.
Wenn man den Leuten nicht immer Wohlwollen unterstellt, dann können die Ergebnisse schnell anders ausfallen.
There is a lot of anxiety and energy put in to the project of defining fascism. It makes sense. Fascism is (nearly) universally understood to be negative, dangerous, intoxicating. Fascism is the bath salts of political philosophy. A drug terrifying not just because of its degrading effects on the body, but the horror of enacting out atrocities -- but being unable to recognize them as atrocities until sober.
A precise, sorting definition of fascism would be a powerful prophylactic. 1/
It occurred to me today that the social value of the open-source work I do in my free time has probably been an order of magnitude more useful to the world than everything I've ever done as a paid employee. Needing to seek a wage almost certainly makes me a less productive member of society than I would otherwise be.
I’m here with a horde of other journalists because we’re hoping that the magistrate judge will read Trump’s name or initials—DT or DJT—if an indictment is handed down.
You do amazing 👏 work.
You should be the benchmark for "keeping up."
If only 20-30% of journalists were so devoted here in the #Fediverse and not on billionaire sites, this could change #democracies around the globe 🌎 .
The majority doesn't enjoy being lied to with #FakeNews.
Billionaire former minister in Hosni Mubarak's Egyptian dictatorship donates £5m to the UK Conservative Party, to help it win the next election.
It's approved, it's legal, and it's rotten to the core.
The UK's political system is institutionally corrupt.
What is the UK's #CitizensUnitedVsFEC called that permits such insane perversions of democracy, which permits a foreign capitalist to influence national elections?
The house of the future could be built with dirty diapers. As strange as it might sound, discarded nappies can be sterilized and reused in concrete and mortar.
...banned from any trading on financial markets whose decisions might influence their decisions.
Last but not least, #CitizensUnitedVsFEC must be reversely codified.
All #US allies must be given the same most-favored nation treatment. Further clashes w/ authoritarian systems are already on the horizon. #Capitalism won the #ColdWar, now it is part of the problem.
A #NewDeal 3.0 must be developed and the #US must become more of a social-democracy like..
Yes, but through #CitizensUnitedVsFEC*, quite the opposite has been happening for more than a decade and the #US are no a de-facto #plutocracy in all but name.
Sorry, but you can't convince me that the test of a reusable rocket system is supposed to involve destroying the launch site—which was reusable on every prior generation of space flight technology—and launching debris thousands of feet away.
#SpaceX is not a serious company, it's a clown show, and it should not have a single dollar in government funding, much less billions.
IDK much about #Canada, is there something like the #CitizensUnitedVsFEC#SCOTUS ruling that lets corporations and billionaires virtually "buy" politicians, like in the #US?
@RadicalGraffiti
Yes, that is called #plutocracy
(from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) 'wealth', and κράτος (krátos) 'power') or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income.)
I think we should be talking about a Wealth Tax of some kind in the US. It's way past time, and it's a simple matter of fairness We can't wait around for politicians to figure this out on their own. We need to exert pressure on them, or vote them out.
In the news today:
The Guardian: ‘Tax us now’: ultra-rich call on governments to introduce wealth taxes
How do we take power from the ultra-rich and create a system defended against self-dealing in government and the rise of robber barons? If you figure that out you solve pretty much everything, including climate change.
In light of the paper from Geoffrey Supran, @rahmstorf, and Naomi Oreskes showing that #Exxon predicted #GlobalWarming extremely accurately between 1977 and 2003, contradicting their decades of #ClimateDenial, this exchange between Rep. AOC and Exxon scientists is worth revisiting.
And now, let this graph sink in and ask yourself why the #US's government has not been able to do anything about this, in particular since the disastrous #SCOTUS ruling #CitizensUnitedVsFEC?!?
UPDATE:
Once you have done that, a third hearing has now taken place by #Congress that examines that fatal connection in more detail, the #SBC, led by its Chairman, Senator #Whitehouse: