United states of decay
In a bourgeois state, the laws are for the little people.
It annoys me to no end that real-life whistleblowers end up in jail, have to emmigrate or die under mysterious circumstances, but fictional whistleblowers are cheered on in theatres and novels.
It's like America has a severe case of cognitive dissonance that the world sees, but is happy to stay that way no matter the cost.
We have a severe case of conservatism. It is a plague long overdue for a cure.
Winstonchurchilcure.jpg
Historically, that's the only thing that's worked.
ELI5?
Winston Churchill meme showing cure for insomnia. Bullets are handy cartridges. Gun is applicator. Used recently as a meme for curing fascism.
Real life whistleblowers endanger the real life rich.
The middle class is a made up idea to convince part of the working class that they are immune to the problems of the rest of the working class because they’re in a marginally better financial position.
You almost got it. The Totally Fucked class is there to remind the Not Rich class that it could be worse, and that if they rock the boat, they can easily be relegated to the Totally Fucked class if they miss a paycheck or two.
Fictional whistleblowers are cheered on because the public likes whistleblowers and the people making the fiction know that but real whistleblowers are persecuted because the people in power do not represent the public
As has been said here before, not many cheered for Chelsea, Snowden, Reality or even Assange.
We can't keep blaming the elite who rule us if we're not willing to put boots on the ground and shut the nation down until politicians do the right thing.
And it's not impossible ... just look at France to see how it should be done.
There's a severe lack of political will in the US that I attribute to both isolation and electoralism. Many if not most Americans believe the extent of their political actions should be voting for a president every 4 years and any political organization or movement outside of this typically gets co-opted or rebranded into something useless. America is very good at handling it's citizens and very good at squashing radical political movements.
Most people simply don't care because they don't truly believe there is anything they can actually do about it. Better to just not worry about it.
Real life whistleblowers don't have a full team of Hollywood PR professionals boosting their image.
The closest we came to a real whistleblower celebrity was Edward Snowden. And when he left Hong Kong for Russia, all the liberals who thought he was a based freedom fighting chad decided oops nah, Big Russia Foreign Agent disregard everything about that PRISM shit.
If anything, the jester solidifies the king’s power by working for the king as a sort of pressure valve. The king wants some of the discontent of the people to be expressed openly, releasing built-up tension and ensuring that said discontent will not burst in actions that could really undermine his position. The jester is his means of doing that.
When we, the public, laugh at the king, our laughter is also an expression of his power. He wants us to laugh so as not to act. It is, then, his laughter grafted onto our faces. When we laugh at the king, it is actually the king laughing at us.
The king is still a human being. Refer to historical France and Russia for ways to deal with leaders who don't listen to the people.
Oh, we're not happy... But those who rule us pretend to be.
Same thing happens with fictional businessmen
Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two people and wounding a third during racial justice unrest in Wisconsin last year, is continuing to rack up massive amounts of donations ahead of his November trial, according to a legal defense fund associated with his family which said Monday it has raised nearly $500,000 in the past three months. Forbes
Support for Charles Littlejohn $48,685 USD raised of $250,000 goal GoFundMe
To be fair though, Kyle Rittenhouse gets indirect funding from all the weapon manufacturers and conservative groups. Charles Littlejohn managed to piss off everybody who matters/makes decisions.
Cheers for the link!
"We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes." - Leona Helmsley. (~ 1989)
(Convicted of extortion; sentenced to 16 years; released after months.) Her husband's death left her with the Helmsley hotels, the Helmsley Palace and the Empire State Building. (Yes, that one.)
right for the wrong reasons, those reasons being the rich themselves
I'm amazed Reality Winner is still alive.
It will never happen. Biden is owned by the same people as Trump. There's only one party, the party of the Oligarchs. All of the petty shit about abortion, trans rights, gay rights, racial equality, gender equality, religion, second amendment, etcetera are all distractions to keep us all at each others throats while the rich cocksuckers figure out more insidious ways to fuck us all over.
This sounds a lot like the one party "they're all the same" bullshit that right wingers like to propogate.
Because make no mistake, one party is at least trying to push laws through that help (democrats), versus the other which just openly fucks people and doesn't give a shit about helping out.
44 Democrat senators, 36 Republicans and Joe Biden all worked together to pass a law forcing a union to accept a contract it's members had already voted on and rejected.
Fuck all of them.
This doesn't mean there's no difference between Biden and Trump. Don't do the fascists favors.
It's great that you picked the one option where Democrats were trying to help thos railroad workers but Republicans refused. Then when Democrats have to continue the literal working infrastructure of the United States, they get the blame for it... Rather than the company owners and Republicans lmfao. Democrats literally didn't not have enough votes on their own.
Sounds like Fox News is working to me. Because 90% of Lemmy does nothing but peddle it lol.
Wow. Thanks for cherry picking one thing out of hundreds to show your point! That's a solid way of arguing.
Would you like me to cherry pick an example of one which disproves you? Or would you like to examine the evidence as a whole and actually properly examine it?
Yeah, yeah, just shut down any discussion with this canned response calling the other person a fascist. The drunk, neglectful mother is really the good parent because the father is verbally, and sometimes physically, abusive. We shall never criticize the mother because we are so fortunate to have her and that is the end of the discussion.
Buddy, I came from a household like that. The less abusive one is absolutely better.
We, in America, are living that abuse right now. You either choose the less abusive, or watch the other one fuck entire world up.
Wow this is an insane take. I don't often speak to right wingers but this is pretty far from reality. None of what you wrote is accurate and I never called anyone a fascist.
I'm just relying on the evidence that clearly doesn't line up with whatever rhetoric you're spewing. Jeez that's vile though.
Oh no, my trans kid is being discriminated against. Time to ship them off to a private villa in another country.
Oh no, my daughter got knocked up. Impromptu vacation in Europe & private therapy.
Oh no, my relative is the wrong skin color. Give them a job posting "we're all in this together" memes in corporate PR.
Fuck this bullshit. There is a difference here, and what you're spouting here is pure Propaganda.
I agree the wealthy on both sides IS treated differently from all of the rest of us, but that doesn't mean there's no difference between fascism and the failure of progress.
They hated him for he told the truth.
I know that sounds dismissive, but if you have no healthcare and can't afford a place to live, and your right to dissent is eroded every day, then all of the other differences won't matter when we're dead.
The two party/mass media distraction machine working on the next big thing? 😄
Trump even admitted to this stuff though, he said they all do it and they won't change the tax laws. IEven Chappelle write a bit about it.
He waves it in 'average Joe's' face, and people are still voting for him. 🤯
Dude, Joe Biden is a career politician. He's trash... But he's still better than Trump. Trump is a fucking dumpster fire threatening to light this whole world on fire.
Another thing. If that were going to happen, why hasn't he pardoned Julian Assange yet, hmm? Assange embarassed the elites and exposed their bullshit. Trump was his fan for a minute until his bullshit got exposed too. Turns out that Hillary has more ties with Russia than Trump. It's the Machiavellian strategy: accuse your opponent of the thing you're guilty of.
Biden if you were looking for a chance to prove you’re about reform and equality for working classes
No. Shut up. Sit down. If you don't vote for Biden, then you ain't working class, Jack.
Biden is 99% composed of Hitler particles he's not doing jack other than killing Palestinians.
As opposed to Trump, who's only following the Hitler playbook and seeking to aid and abett Putin in dismantling the entire western world?
Spoiler: Everyone is going to die. Not just the West. Everyone. Putin thinks so much less of everyone than Putin and Trump.
I wish trump was going to aid the dissolution of the west lol. You're giving him too much credit. In actuality the only thing he would do differently is dominate the US's allies slightly more and spread slightly more racist rhetoric. Considering the US empire will commit genocide in either case nothing justifies legitimizing it by participating.
Just more proof that tax laws are not made for the working class.
deleted by creator
All federal laws are made by the ownership class.
State laws too.
Town laws are different but mostly zero power.
His name is Littlejohn, and he's fighting against rich people? It was his destiny! If that judge didn't let him off he must be in bed with the aristocrats!
There's only so many times you can guillotine the same corpse before it gets old. After all it's "eat the rich", not "slice the rich like toast". So a few days will be sufficient.
I'd love to "bother" but do you have any suggestions? The French method ain't what it used to. The people need direction and I'm not talking about politicians. Everytime one pops up they get disappeared. The powers that be have gotten very good at keeping the status quo. So until that changes, yeah complacency it is.
Isn't there some kind of amendment you guys are so proud of? Something to do with tyrannical governments? I know solidarity isn't your thing entirely but it makes me wonder what you guys are waiting to happen before you use those guns. I hear they also help against disappearing. I realize that's a big step but you could at least take to the streets, no?
Also, "the powers that be" don't keep the status quo. The complacent populace waiting for something to change is. You are way more than them but for some reason you don't channel that power.
I think the biggest problem is how it's such a complicated issue, it's really hard to just 'rally the masses around'. Especially when there's plenty of other runaway complicated issues we also need to rail against.
I think this is why the "Occupy Wall St." protests ultimately fizzled. People were pissed, many knew exactly why, many had a vague idea, and many others just wanted to blow off steam.
One "advanatage" the rich have with their ideology is insidious simplicity. Does it serve money? Do that. Does it keep you rich and punish others? Do that. Terribly predictable, but they all unite under solidarity of acquiring currency. They're not bothered with how it affects the planet or any other human beings that don't threaten their accounts.
A majority of these injustices are essentially us being very unhappy with all the complicated, multifaceted, complex ways in which these weaponized simpletons pursue cash and the power to acquire more cash. We know something is VERY wrong, but untangling it enough to unite under a common demand is a much heavier burden.
Occupy Wall street was attacked by one of the most coordinated police actions in US history. Never forget that.
Excellent dig-up. Thanks for this. :) It's really hard to maintain "what really happened" as time goes on. I can't believe this was so long ago.
A lot of the problems boil down to FPTP-voting and the current way political campaigns are financed. They result in this polarized deadwater where money and power practically become synonymous words wielded to keep anything from changing via journalism and the courts on this matter. It's exactly as intended by the old roman aristocrats that designed it over 2 millenia ago to maintain influence regardless of voter outcomes.
And the Judge was furious they couldn't give him a harsher sentence. That five years was quite literally throwing the book at him. It's a felony, though, so even after he gets out he'll be stripped of his rights to vote or purchase a firearm. His job prospects will dwindle to the point of non-existence. And I think he'll be prevented from owning a computer or accessing the Net, given the nature of his crime.
hold up.. even after release he has no right to vote? how fucked is that
Felons voting doesn't hurt voting results more than anything else, the US is just retarded.
No surprise there.
Can't believe a Rupert Murdoch owned publication would do this
I wonder what would have been revealed if he had published tax information on all of Congress.
I feel like them calling for such harsh treatment isnl a defense mechanism for knowing they either use the same tactics,.or they don't like when someone mentions all the legal insider trading/conflict of interest they all do?
I'm pretty sure every senator and rep has more money then everyone I know.
Just another day in paradise... As we (the poors) all await the jubilee.
Tax avoidance is the real problem, while tax evasion is largely a misdirection at people who begin to get a fraction of their wealth without the experience to properly manage it. They've even penalized people who essentially have nothing to do with the US, accidental Americans (those who've lived their entire life in another country), as tax evaders because of the slimmest thread of association to the US.
Imagine being growing up in a country for decades, working there and having everything there, and having the US show up and tell you that your day-to-day bank account down the street is really a foreign bank account, using their economic weight to have the bank freeze it and throw you out. It isn't a case of the theoretical, it has happened, and those people have been forced to "renounce" (heckled) to fork out over $4k to get them off their back - and even the EU has been ok with this, largely because it also answers to the lobbyists of wealthy billionaires.
Meanwhile rich assholes use what are essentially shell corporations (they don't even have to be because of the size of their wealth) to move their wealth to whatever fiscal paradise they want. They don't even need to change their citizenship because they can just create a corporation with headquarters wherever they please for whatever tax benefits it gives them. This is the problem: https://time.com/...
Let's make sure that neither cristofacists nor corporation-friendly libertarians economically-minded individuals come to power.
I just learned: In ancient times the government paid money to their citizens to get their fellowship. Only conquered countries had to pay taxes.
And in ancient times in Mesopotamia, there have been quite regular debt reset events. All private debts got null. Commercial debts still were valid.
I‘m currently reading „Debt“ by David Graeber. Interesting to read how religion, money, guilt and debt are intertwined. How we are forced into the rat race by burden us with debts - with both, moral and financial debts.
Only conquered countries had to pay taxes.
"Debt: The First 5000 Years" is such a good book because it really exposes the dynamics of conquest.
Conquered countries had to pay taxes in the coin of the realm. Coin was paid to the soldiers occupying the country. So in order to pay taxes, you were obligated to do business with the occupying soldiery. This system very quickly sorted the folks willing to accept conquest from the folks intent on rebellion, and it had a secondary benefit of enriching the defectors.
The conception of currency as a means of delimiting who is and is not a part of your society is really a genius bit of social engineering.
I'm on my 2nd reading of Bullshit Jobs by Graeber, I'll have to pick up Debt; I hear a lot of good things about it.
This guy obviously shouldn’t be in jail, can someone expand on the guy who the article says was forced into psychiatric care?
Anyways this one legal loophole has been around for awhile—rich people can acquire really low interest loans against their assets so they do, and they use that to pay their expenses, and when it comes tax time they write down that they made some money but they also took out a massive loan so actually they’re in the red. If you own a house you could probably leverage this to some extent yourself. Maybe if everyone who could did it they’d close the loophole? Obviously you couldn’t get rates as low as a politician who chills with the Schwab CEO.
can someone expand on the guy who the article says was forced into psychiatric care?
Judging from how he was treated, it looks like he was one of the good officers the police say they have:
If you own a house you could probably leverage this to some extent yourself.
That's a mortgage. Most people use it to pay for the house itself, but you are free to use the money in other ways if you already own the house. It's probably the only leveraged asset many people own, and the interest rate isn't particularly low at the moment, but it's the same thing as getting, say, a line of credit against your yacht.
It's called a secured loan. And a house secured loan (aka mortgage) isn't as good as a stock secured loan.
Stock secured loans rates were basically zero for quite a few years. I think this is why all the venture capital suddenly dried up. Both owning a stock AND taking out a loan based on that stock at 0.25% APR is an insane deal. A year of interest on a million dollars is $2,500. And the stock you're holding will outperform that. After a few years you just sell a bit of the stock to continue paying the interest of the loan.
Now that the interest rates are 6-7% things are different. Suddenly your yearly payment on that million dollar loan is $65,000 instead of $2,500. And your stock may not make 6% this year to pay for it.
It's kind of a miracle this return to reality didn't cause more of a collapse.
I agree that mortgage rates didn't drop to that level, but the same sort of trick worked on them. House prices were rising at anything up to 10% per annum, well above the mortgage rate, so you could refinance regularly, probably reduce your Loan to Value level, and also free up more capital to pay off the upcomming interest payments.
As you say, these methods have pretty much stopped working as the growth and interest figures have flipped. I don't see much of a risk of a true market collapse though as there are simply too many powerful people and institutions with too much to lose if that happened. It could be rather turbulent for the rest of us though.
There are also equity based life insurance policies I think you can do similar things. My guy explained it to me as the justification for the policy and of course because I'm a stupid simpleton, I've never looked at actually trying to do something with it.
Lol, I don't want to even be in dept to myself.
That was a great, well sourced article.
America built on the backs of the poor, with the rich with whips whipping at their backs. But we all knew this. We know that the rich are evading axes, and we poor are all paying for the criminey! government funding that we hate. (there are some good things the government funds, but nothing compared to what they put in crazy wars and overseas spending. But that's another gripe.) I kind of feel bad this guy got 5 years for telling us all what we already know. Now if he would have given us all a way to fix this problem, that would be something for the rich and government to be in an uproar about.
And five years is quick, compared to the life sentence exile that Edward Snowden got. We all knew all that stuff too.
Everyone has well covered my frustration with both the tax ideas here and some miscarriage justice, so I have this question:
Question:
What countries do you think are really good examples of what right looks like for taxation?
Any countries that rise above the rest for proper proportion of personal tax, corporate tax, etc?
Why: The older I get, the more I feel like Americans are tought that capitalism good, else bad; rich are the reason the rest of us have it as good as we do, and we should thank them for it.
I'd like to compare to other countries, that's why I'm curious,.just trying to Google is a broad starting place.
I'd start with a braoder picture first that will have the best chance of naturally funneling you to the information you seek.
I'd start with looking up what merits are used to consider a government ran program successful.
From there use those merits but look for examples of programs and the governments responsible for the programs that have been used as models for what happens when a program FAILS to meet each of those merits.
Then look at what each of the failed programs cost to the taxpayers and what percentage of that goverment's total the failed program accounts for.
Divide those costs by the population of tax payering citizens and you will have what earch failed program cost each person.
Do the same process for successful programs to form a picture of what efficient tax funded programs vs inefficient/failed programs look like.
Ive done similar analysis cant remember what the reson specifically was for but the added bonus of doing the search yourself is eventually you'll start finding similar researchers doing similar analysis and discovering methods, questions, variables you didnt even know you were missing.
What I do remember from my similar search was finding several really good articles on the systematic failures plagueing government ran programs that exist accross many different government models and why they cant be fixed without a complete overhaul of how a governing body is structured.
One of the things they broje down is how any government ran program is the same entity assessing the cost efficiency of a program is almost always the same entity making its budget proposals. Which is the same entity that usually advocated and proposed the program. Which is the same entity whose tenure is dependent on the success of the program.
Its been a really long time since I read the article and did my best from memory but without finding the articles, ill admit I may have butchered explaining that example lol.
Basically for a governing power to have longevity it needs to have redundancies to prevent burning out and those redundancies make gorernment ran programs incapable of having many of the natural variables of business to affect any government ran program.
Again, full disclaimer I'm shooting from the hip and the take away should be the method that works for me to find answers for either really obscure topics or really specific topics.
We need more people like him
I hear revolution is calling!
Not holding my breath.
Archive link ... because I couldn't get the posted link to work.
How much privacy is expected of the POTUS? Precedent is established and in the case of the Presidency strictly adhered to until as of recently. Nah, the public was given what was owed to it.
Yeah, because the cunt doesn't give a shit about serving the people he's supposed to represent. Or do you also think Hitler was entitled to some privacy and the enigma code shouldn't have been broken?
Because there are very few rules that should be universal. "Keeping tax returns secret so they don't expose the benefits rich people get" isn't one of them.
There are exceptions to almost every rule. As there should be.
Your mistake is seeing the rich as people.
How Taxes Steal For The Rich
They have some really great medication for stroke victims. Get well soon.
You no read good?
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@lemmy.world
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Nevertheless, he added, “the judge gave him a max sentence, claiming it was ‘a moral imperative’ to punish him as harshly as possible.”
This guy gets fried on ‘mOrAL iMpeRaTivE’ — but Trump and Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh continue to party on— while making a complete mockery of the ever apparent 2-tiered US justice system.
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