Elite impunity is the root problem, and corporate consolidation is one symptom.
All unelected power centers should be broken into small pieces. And there should be rule of law: the same law for all of us, impartially enforced, and anyone who opposes that should be held accountable by the system, if it’s not too fucked up, or by the people, if it still is.
How are they just now realizing this?
I think some German dude figured this stuff out about 180 years ago.
And corruption. Corruption and poor understanding of scale and economics doomed all implementations of his ideas.
Who?
MY NAME IS
Think it was some dude by the name of Karl
No, it was his brother Mark
Marky Marx
Needs a big gray beard.
Who?
Some guy named Karl
Just a li’l guy, you know
They needed to get their share of that corporate money first. Now that they’re not getting basically any campaign money compared to conservatives from corporate pacs, they’re like “cool, we can pretend to care now”. Stop electing centrists.
Democrats need a solid 40 years to recognize anything is happening, and then another 80 to do something about it.
It’d get done faster if all the people bitching decided to channel that into voting.
How does voting for capitalism get rid of capitalism?
Been voting in every election since 2000.
I don’t think it works anymore.
A bit short-sighted, perhaps, when oligarchs control the media and encourage the “both sides” bullshit so people won’t vote, and right-wing media has gone for decades convincing a third of the populace to vote for fascism.
If we were able to break through that propaganda, voting would give us a supermajority of at least Democrats, and some number of actual progressives such that we might be able to get shit done.
That said, giving up is certainly not the answer.
Short sighted?
Twenty six fucking years and I’m “short sighted.”
Fuck all this shit, I’ve heard it all before.
Okay. So stop voting and help the fascists then. I can’t stop you.
I hate where we are as well. I’m 50 and remember when it was just starting to go bad. It sucks.
But I will always vote.
I only vote to show it doesn’t help and I’m not going to give up on my 26 year streak.
Plus my mom would kill me if I didn’t vote.
Strangely enough, it’s still the same ones in office after all that time…
The problem is one part corporate consolidation, and two+ parts that corporations are allowed to harm the public for their own gain without repercussions (or repercussions that don’t sufficiently punish the corporations). A corporation is often just an entity that looks for commons to tragedy - whether it is big or small.
But if they had truly implemented an earth-shattering transformation, then surely at least some faint tremors would have registered with the public. Instead, Biden’s popularity plunged early in his presidency and never recovered. There was no uptick in Biden’s approval rate produced by trustbusting, no green shoots that promised to blossom with more time.
Perhaps oligarchal control of the media means that when progress is actually made, it is not communicated to the populace.
Neo-Brandeisian ideas have drawn at least some support from Trump world.
This is probably necessary if we have any hope of re-taking our country back from fascism and oligarchy.
Well, I don’t know. The author of the piece definitely doesn’t agree, and I’m not sure if I do or not. I do know I personally think the root of our problems in the US are primarily the oligarchs. Fascists are a close second, with Evangelicals a close third.
A lot of those are the same people
I do know I personally think the root of our problems in the US are primarily the oligarchs
Aren’t oligarchs caused by corporate consolidation?
They’re certainly enhanced and it’s related probably but I’m not sure it’s a 1:1 thing exactly. But far closer to the truth than things like “Democrats just don’t do anything”.
First off this article is basically arguing that Lynn’s idea have become a religion in the Democratic party, and a religion that doesn’t answer anything.
Second, the ways to fix this from a rooted evidence based method are State based and start with RCV and proportional voting. But it also means intentionalizing a institutional investment in people and ideas in democratic ideals which is taught, trained, placed, and promoted over decades, specifically focused on taking regulatory authority seriously.
There’s more, but I’m tired of reading about ideas that critique without actionable answers. This is fixable but it’s going to take generation and intention… As well as attention… Which the American people don’t fucking have, even if we are all bloody angry.
It took a Great Depression to unlodge the average person’s head from their asshole last time
Trump: hold my beer
Nah, there are at least two problems, with the other big one being zoning. Everything from climate change to the housing crisis to poor health due to sedentary lifestyles is caused by it.
Zoning issues that you’re thinking of stem from our Happy-Motoring society.
Deliberately car-centric utopian modernism (the Garden Cities movement, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, etc.) is certainly a factor, but I’d say it’s as much, if not more, about racism. Once de-jure segregation was outlawed, making property expensive by using minimum lot sizes to force people to buy a lot of it at a time became the next-best way to keep (poorer, on average) black people out.
