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)
I do think that "the system" (not any particular person or group of people, but the more abstract social meta-organism) is evolved, all systems are, to integrate and channel possible destabilizing forces into neutralized or even system-reaffirming forces. The system does not "platform" people who would legitimately threaten the system as a general rule. Jon Oliver is a pressure release valve, if he was to propose solutions that threatened to alter the system too much (systems see significant alterations as akin to death), he would be deplatformed organically. Again, I must stress that it is not an actual person or organization explicitly setting out to do this, like some sort of shady Comedy Central Illuminati. It's just the same as how our body has a bunch of independent organs and cells that all work together without exactly trying to or knowing that they're doing so.
Unfortunately Bernie is largely the same sort of thing. We can be assured of this by the fact that he is influential. Almost without exception, the more influential someone wants to be, the more pro-systemic they must be. In Bernie's case he may not even realize how pro-systemic he is, he likely sees himself as more anti-systemic. But he is anti-systemic in the same way as a white blood cell is anti-systemic - that is, not at all, and only in appearance without inspection of the bigger picture. I suspect this is why he ends up not proposing any clear course of action. His role, although again I think he is unaware of this, is to create the sense that establishment dissent exists and is possible, that change and reform is possible. I say this without taking a stance on whether it is actually possible or not. Both in a system where it is possible and in a system where it is not possible, there would still be a flag bearer for that possibility regardless of its actual existence.
What I mean to say is that the system self-selects for the type of people who acknowledge problems but not the type of people who make proposals to fix them. It wants to appear to be investigating the desires of its constituents while not actually doing so - the system only cares about its constituents in so far as its constituents lead to the system's well-being as a whole. The system does not intrinsically care for its constituents well-being. So while systems do indeed evolve and legitimately investigate ways to improve their own well-being, they will only appear to investigate ways to approve the well-being of their constituents, if they can help it.
All just my impressions of course, I hate talking in an authoritative voice about my ideas, but it's better than prefacing every sentence with "I think", "it seems like", etc.
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.
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.
I like this comment even though I can’t actually confirm it’s sarcasm. I think it’s be great if we all spent 0,0087% of our wealth on engagement rings.
"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.
So, while I agree with the "vote away Fascism" being bull shit I do still think that working class momentum can be built through wins like Mamdani.
I see so many comments saying "voting won't work", "protesting won't work" etc. Anything that has any visible result, works. Because the majority of people follow the herd to a greater or lesser extent. You need to mobilise that majority in order to make a difference. The more you have a movement, the bigger, louder and more visible that is, the more people will join you. People need to feel which way the wind is blowing.
Good thing they implemented even more tax cuts for the rich, coming soon™...
But obviously not too soon, otherwise they can't blame the dems for it.
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