That’s the easy part. Remove corporate money from politics and severely punish any hint of corruption before it spreads.
It needs to be made very very clear that these assholes represent their constituents, not big business. Any district has the absolute authority to recall their representative at any point; no argument, no appeal. If they fight the recall, it’s treason and is punished as such.
The system isn’t without redemption. We’re only here because they forgot that they work for US. And we lost the wherewithal to make them remember that. Three…maybe four heads roll (literally), and they’ll remember how politics is supposed to work for the people.
For example: The moment Ted Cruz ran to Mexico and left his state in freezing temperatures, his own constituents should have dragged him from his mansion by his toenails and strung him up. If they did, you think the next person would try that shit? If we let them get away with it, they’ll keep doing it. Nip it in the bud right from the start. Get out of line and we’ve got no problem fucking your shit up.
Politicians need to be very afraid of their constituents.
As long as private ownership of the economy is allowed, there will be money in politics. The actual permanent solution is to communalize the economy so that it benefits everyone, instead of just a few rich people who did nothing to deserve it.
Private ownership isn’t the problem. CORPORATE ownership is.
When a company is no longer owned by humans and is instead owned by shareholders (who themselves are usually non-human hedgefunds, LLC’s, financial firms, etc…), and being run “Boards of Directors”; fat-cats who have no idea what real life is like and are entirely beholden to a stock price.
When humanity is removed so far from the capitalist equation as they are in corporations, we’ve lost the plot of what capitalism was supposed to be in the first place; human’s buying and selling from other human’s.
I usually like to use, as an example, my best and my worst jobs. I worked for a locally owned furniture store. The owner was awesome. He built the business ground up with his family. And he was a success. He paid me fairly, gave good benefits, treated me like family. Would just randomly pass out raises if things were good because he believed in sharing success with the people that helped him achieve it.
The very reason he could do this is because he wasn’t beholden to a stock price, or a Board of Directors, whose only legal mandate is to increase profit year over year. He was successful, in the multi-millionaire range. Could he have been even MORE successful (monetarily) if he didn’t give raises, or benefits, or paid vacations? Sure he could have. But that’s not what it was about.
Compare that to my worst job, working for a Telecom in Canada (frontline store manager, nothing major) and being told that no one was getting raises that year because the “company didn’t make any money”, even though I knew damn well that the company make 6 billion dollars. But the point was that, because at the beginning of the year, analysts forecast the company to make 7 billion, and because they didn’t make it, the stock price was going to take a hit, and holding back raises would at least mitigate that hit a little big. (This…by the way…is the moment that fully radicalized me against corporations).
We need more of the first example and the second is the part of the system that needs to be burned to the fucking ground with extreme prejudice.
Capitalism is not synonymous with markets. Humans have exchanged commodities with other humans long before capitalism began, and will do so for long after capitalism ends. Capitalism is literally just a specific mode of production where the means of production are owned by individuals.
Yup, people need to remember that violence is inherent to any governmental system. Which is why violence is needed to correct the system when it is out of whack.
So we must spend those deaths redeeming the system. Yes. A better world is a nice thought, but not really possible. We must have anew red terror to elect kamala harris.
To make a steelman argument: frequently proposed reforms include eliminating the spoiler effect, which would force politicians to compete for best instead of second worst.
I’m hardly one to fall into the ‘both sides’ argument because, let’s face it, one side is clearly far worse than the other. And hell, as your northern neighbour, I’m frankly more interested in the the fact that I see the same kind of crap happening up here, but…
When one of the supposed good ones on the so-called better side get’s caught on mic saying that they’re “used to hearing their people say fuck no, and doing it anyway”, it’s clear that modern politicians in general (In both the US, Canada, UK, etc… I dare say everywhere, have gotten cocky and forgotten who they work for.
And we’re past the point where a little bit of the ol’ ultra-violence is becoming necessary.
Absolutely do not take any agency in your world, do not be considerate of others, and do not consider the consequences of your actions. Those things are for your betters to do.
The entire system needs to be burned to the ground and built from scratch.
How do we stop it from happening again?
That’s the easy part. Remove corporate money from politics and severely punish any hint of corruption before it spreads.
It needs to be made very very clear that these assholes represent their constituents, not big business. Any district has the absolute authority to recall their representative at any point; no argument, no appeal. If they fight the recall, it’s treason and is punished as such.
The system isn’t without redemption. We’re only here because they forgot that they work for US. And we lost the wherewithal to make them remember that. Three…maybe four heads roll (literally), and they’ll remember how politics is supposed to work for the people.
For example: The moment Ted Cruz ran to Mexico and left his state in freezing temperatures, his own constituents should have dragged him from his mansion by his toenails and strung him up. If they did, you think the next person would try that shit? If we let them get away with it, they’ll keep doing it. Nip it in the bud right from the start. Get out of line and we’ve got no problem fucking your shit up.
Politicians need to be very afraid of their constituents.
As long as private ownership of the economy is allowed, there will be money in politics. The actual permanent solution is to communalize the economy so that it benefits everyone, instead of just a few rich people who did nothing to deserve it.
To be honest, I actually disagree with that.
Private ownership isn’t the problem. CORPORATE ownership is.
When a company is no longer owned by humans and is instead owned by shareholders (who themselves are usually non-human hedgefunds, LLC’s, financial firms, etc…), and being run “Boards of Directors”; fat-cats who have no idea what real life is like and are entirely beholden to a stock price.
When humanity is removed so far from the capitalist equation as they are in corporations, we’ve lost the plot of what capitalism was supposed to be in the first place; human’s buying and selling from other human’s.
I usually like to use, as an example, my best and my worst jobs. I worked for a locally owned furniture store. The owner was awesome. He built the business ground up with his family. And he was a success. He paid me fairly, gave good benefits, treated me like family. Would just randomly pass out raises if things were good because he believed in sharing success with the people that helped him achieve it.
The very reason he could do this is because he wasn’t beholden to a stock price, or a Board of Directors, whose only legal mandate is to increase profit year over year. He was successful, in the multi-millionaire range. Could he have been even MORE successful (monetarily) if he didn’t give raises, or benefits, or paid vacations? Sure he could have. But that’s not what it was about.
Compare that to my worst job, working for a Telecom in Canada (frontline store manager, nothing major) and being told that no one was getting raises that year because the “company didn’t make any money”, even though I knew damn well that the company make 6 billion dollars. But the point was that, because at the beginning of the year, analysts forecast the company to make 7 billion, and because they didn’t make it, the stock price was going to take a hit, and holding back raises would at least mitigate that hit a little big. (This…by the way…is the moment that fully radicalized me against corporations).
We need more of the first example and the second is the part of the system that needs to be burned to the fucking ground with extreme prejudice.
Capitalism is not synonymous with markets. Humans have exchanged commodities with other humans long before capitalism began, and will do so for long after capitalism ends. Capitalism is literally just a specific mode of production where the means of production are owned by individuals.
Yup, people need to remember that violence is inherent to any governmental system. Which is why violence is needed to correct the system when it is out of whack.
With capitalism? You’re asking for capitalism to reign again.
I am not so sure you know what that entails.
Oh I know precisely what that entails and I’m of the opinion that it’s well past time.
Then I hope your mutual aid group overshadows your state.💪
But how many need to die to redeem such a basically shitty anti-democratic system in the first place? Is it worth it?
Call me a pessimist, but at this point we’re not getting out of this without a fair amount of death anyway one way or the other.
So we must spend those deaths redeeming the system. Yes. A better world is a nice thought, but not really possible. We must have anew red terror to elect kamala harris.
To make a steelman argument: frequently proposed reforms include eliminating the spoiler effect, which would force politicians to compete for best instead of second worst.
You are a traitor to the cause of harris-biden '28! OFF WITH THEIR HEAD
I’m hardly one to fall into the ‘both sides’ argument because, let’s face it, one side is clearly far worse than the other. And hell, as your northern neighbour, I’m frankly more interested in the the fact that I see the same kind of crap happening up here, but…
When one of the supposed good ones on the so-called better side get’s caught on mic saying that they’re “used to hearing their people say fuck no, and doing it anyway”, it’s clear that modern politicians in general (In both the US, Canada, UK, etc… I dare say everywhere, have gotten cocky and forgotten who they work for.
And we’re past the point where a little bit of the ol’ ultra-violence is becoming necessary.
Absolutely do not take any agency in your world, do not be considerate of others, and do not consider the consequences of your actions. Those things are for your betters to do.