[4ggr0]

the financier's island files gave me a huge dose of this. i always got the feeling that laws don't really matter for truly rich people, now i'm convinced. which means that we need different methods than law to handle such people.

[buellerbueller]

We just need to elect a wave of politicians that will hold the wealthy accountable. That's the single issue we should all be voting on at the moment. Once the lawless are brought to heel, and their wealth kicked out of politics forever, then we can actually start solving the other problems that face us.

[deaux]

> That's the single issue we should all be voting on at the moment

You're absolutely, 100% right.

I do hope you stick to your word and refrain from voting for anyone who isn't going to do this, including in the "corporate dem vs. rep" scenario.

[thelock85]

Citizens United, a few decades of subpar K-12 education and social media mis/disinformation have made this a tall task… not impossible, but a truly gargantuan challenge.

[brazzy]

You mean, someone to... drain the swamp? Splendid idea, no way that can go wrong!

[a_better_world]

he might mean Bernie Sanders or someone of that type

[LanceH]

Sanders would just be a different flavor of authoritarian.

[antonvs]

That’s such false equivalence nonsense.

[LanceH]

It certainly wouldn't be equivalence, but it would be another 4 years of expanding presidential powers only for a republican to come to power after that, or after 8 years. It really doesn't matter. The system keeps changing to put us more a risk of a bad president being effectively bad.

Two of the most authoritarian decisions by the supreme court have been progressive in nature: Kelo v. City of New London - where the government can redistribute wealth if it benefits the government, and the whole fiasco around the ACA, which defaults every American to being a criminal until they bought health insurance, using the commerce act as justification for the power grab.

About the ACA, whether I agree with national healthcare is irrelevant, this was not the way to do it -- by expanding the government's reach. There has to be consideration for what the administration does.

[AnimalMuppet]

No, it's not. When people try to "drain the swamp", several things push them to become authoritarians, even if they weren't before.

1. The definition of "the swamp" drifts from "open, blatant corruption" towards "everyone who opposes me". That's a much larger set, so you need bigger guns.

2. Some people agree that "the swamp needs drained", but disagree on what "the swamp" is, and/or disagree on how to drain it.

3. People don't agree with everything you're doing. (Maybe this is the same as #1 and/or #2.) Some people oppose you because they're corrupt, some people oppose you because they dislike change, and some people oppose you because they dislike your methods. The more force you use, the more people oppose your methods. But as opposition grows, you need more force to get anywhere.

The result is that anybody who sets out to do something like "drain the swamp", if they stick with it as an objective, gets pushed toward more and more authoritarianism to try to make it happen.

Look, Bernie isn't Trump. He's been consistently pushing in the same direction for decades. He actually cares about his issues; he's not just using them as a cover for seeking power. But I think that, if he got actual power (president, not just senator), the dynamics of the situation would also push him to become more and more authoritarian.

(Would he become equivalent to Trump? Hopefully not.)

[soulofmischief]

And how do we do that? The reality is those of us in the know are stuck twiddling our thumbs until the party duopoly pisses off enough politically illiterate people.

The only way to speed that up is communication and unity, two things our government is actively trying (and succeeding) to destroy. I can tell you right now I'm not convincing anyone here in Louisiana to change their minds on anything.

The only real hope, sans a US civil war and/or balkanization, is reaching the youth of today and giving them the facts. Unfortunately, our governments are also throwing a wrench in that plan by requiring more and more "Think of the Children!!!" legislation, a trojan horse for further reducing our right to free speech and public gathering.

[shimman]

Not trying to sound like a dick, but do you actually go outside and talk to your neighbors? Do you attend your town boards or education boards or housing boards? Are you part of your local political party's chapter?

I am, and what I see is that there are people trying to fight this good fight and they need help.

Advocacy is by far the worst form of politics (talking about things), organizing is where real work happens and the act of politics takes place.

I recommend you actually go out in the real world and embrace your community.

[soulofmischief]

> I recommend you actually go out in the real world and embrace your community.

My neighborhood has a civic association which I am a part of. Additionally, I know dozens of my neighbors across the entire neighborhood on a first-name basis. I know all of my neighbors on my street, and have their contact information. I reach out to them on holidays. I discuss politics openly and loudly. Many of my neighbors are conservative, but we at least often agree on things that benefit the community.

I have attempted political community organization over small issues as a start, but I currently am learning how to engage in larger-scale unification and mobilization tactics, while continuing to ingratiate myself in the neighborhood; which by the way, is increasingly owned by a small group of conservative landlords who snipe any open house on the market worth a damn and rent it back out to young people who pay off their mortgages for them.

I do not belong to a political party, there is no local chapter. There is also no unified countercultural scene here. There are a few third spaces spread across a very sprawling city, a city architecturally designed to create class division and minimize inter-class and intra-class unification.

You have to come here to see it. It is bad. Anyone who can, leaves. And it's not a backwater town, I live in the capital city. I myself left nearly a decade ago, but returned in order to help my sister get back on her feet. I plan to leave again, because this city is dying and the local government holds it hostage.

We are currently in the midst of organizing a recall against our current mayor, who is trying once again to sneak past legislation that our city came together to vote against merely months ago. And don't get me started on our governor, Trump's wannabe lapdog. This is the most corrupt state in the US by a long shot. It has the highest prisoner per capita of any state or country in the world. We are talking about generations and generations of corruption, brainwashing and power division. Extremely powerful corporate interests, much like Texas.

Your advice is sound but I think it unintentionally came with some unvalidated assumptions about what kind of person I am and what environment I'm currently beset against.

[zo1]

It's human nature scaled up. Just isolate and zoom in on any single injustice or "how the sausage is made" scenario that you are privy to in your industry. Just a random water-cooler discussion about agreeing to a certain tech framework, or being 5% more likely to promote the project who's team is led by your friend, etc.

...And it gets worse and worse the higher I go in my career. Nothing is logical, nothing is purely organic and merit based. It's all marketing, promotion, personal-preference and plain old backroom deals. No amount of banging your head against any wall with logic or pros/cons can dissuade those in power from changing their mind, unless you force their hand with blatant lies/facts/bad-optics.

[4ggr0]

i wish that would be the solution. mind you, i am not only talking about the sexual abuse. there's also corruption, tax evasion(excuse me, *optimization of course), closed-door deals, arrangements etc.

i unfortunately don't believe we'll ever be able to vote these things away. what do votes do if we have over 3000 billionaires worldwide who treat the world like their playground. add to the 3000 the other thousands of people who "only" have 100M+.

good luck finding voters when the people with money can launch huge marketing(aka. propaganda) campaigns and control virtually every social media platform, news site, radio- and tv channel, podcasts and what have you.

something i only recently heard about and am thinking a lot about is, 'The purpose of a system is what it does'.

JE feels like a symptom, not a disease.

[thmsths]

Or maybe stop allowing people to pay for their own legal defense? Public defenders for everyone and then we will indeed all be equals before the law.

Billionaires being able to outspend the prosecution by such a wide margin that they can turn the legal battle into a war of attrition that they are likely to win is a complete travesty of justice. But I am not holding my breath on that one, too many people benefiting from the current system.

[rdiddly]

The Luigi Mangione method? United Healthcare's brief couple-week spasm of not being complete dicks and borderline fraudsters to people with legitimate insurance claims, was encouraging in this regard. Unfortunately, to take this position you have to condone murder. And I don't see it doing anything to redistribute wealth - it just passes it on to their spouses or kids. On the other hand, if the spouse is a Melinda Gates or MacKenzie Scott type, having them be in charge might be an improvement.

[4ggr0]

or the Charles-Henri Sanson method.

> brief couple-week spasm

maybe we have to start systematically hunting these people instead of one-off events :D

who am i kidding. consider myself a pacifist, talk instead of fight, find common ground and all that cute jazz. i feel powerless. murdering people will not change the system, too global and interconnected for this.

maybe us commoners really should start living like hippies. stop consuming from corporations, grow your own crops, start solarpunk societies. repair stuff. reuse. i don't know.