Corporations and oligarchs with massive fortunes can hire as many junktanks (so-called thinktanks), troll farms, marketing gurus, psychologists and micro-targeters as they need to devise justifications and to demonise, demoralise, abuse and threaten people trying to sustain a habitable planet.

With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it’s the plutocrats v life on Earth

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/15/food-systems-collapse-plutocrats-life-on-earth-climate-breakdown

Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

#distraction #manipulation #plutocracy #socialcontrol #profit #corporatemedia

Class 6: “Political Power and Wealth” by UC Berkeley Professor Reich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQS2ptfayVI&ab_channel=RobertReich

This week brings us to one of the core problems of widening inequality — the inevitability that concentrated income and wealth at the top comes with political power. This creates a vicious cycle by which the super-rich get changes in the rules of the game that make them even richer, which enables them to make further changes.

#runawayfascism #power #wealth #plutocracy #cycle #upwardwealthtransfer #corruption #bribery

Navajo police scour city streets for houseless victims

https://ictnews.org/news/navajo-police-scour-city-streets-for-houseless-victims

After Arizona shut down fraudulent treatment centers, thousands were dumped onto Phoenix Valley streets.
A scheme that targeted Indigenous people because of a loophole in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System’s (AHCCCS) American Indian Health Program allowed individuals to pose as legitimate health care providers for behavioral health services and then allegedly bill the state for services that were never provided.

#fraud #IndigenousAccess #services #healthcare #Arizona #houseless #victims #predatory #capitalism #plutocracy #abandonment #rescue

ALWAYS AN INDIRECT PLUTOCRACY
Bernie Is Right: Extreme Wealth Concentration Has Turned America Into an Oligarchy

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/bernie-sanders-wealth-concentration-oligarchy-democracy

A new congressional report commissioned by Bernie Sanders finds that the 1 percent now own one-third of all wealth, while the bottom half of Americans hold only 2 percent. It’s another sign of the slide into oligarchy that Sanders has warned about for years.

#plutocracy #oligarchy #sanders #riggedgame #classwar

AI RAP ON SCHWAB

“Schwab, your words reek of manipulation and wealth,

While the real struggle's for freedom, justice, and health.

Revolution isn't a dream, it's the people reasserting,

Against your machines, power-hungry and converting.

You think you're the architect, but you're just a pawn,

Masking global domination with promises drawn.
To Klaus Schwab, imagined puppet master in this feast,
An excuse for power grab, you grand delusional priest.
The people won't be silenced, your control we'll defy,
Tearing down your systems, and let justice amplify.
Your elite fantasies can't suppress our fire,
So keep your population control; we'll never tire.”

#KlausSchwab #WEF #GlobalSlavery #Dystopia #Plutocracy #AI #RapBattle #Fun

https://boredhumans.com/rap_battles.php

FASCIST RETREAT

“You guys are fucking nightmares” Atlas Employees Claim to have dropped Cop City Contract

https://scenes.noblogs.org/post/2023/07/04/you-guys-are-fucking-nightmares-atlas-employees-claim-to-have-dropped-cop-city-contract/

#StopCopCity #fascism #racism #militarizedpolice #profit #plutocracy

Polish judge backs 'homosexuals molest children' claim in 'shameful' ruling

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/07/10/poland-pride-van-lgbt/

A judge in Poland has reportedly acquitted a man who drove a van bearing slogans linking homosexuality to paedophilia during a Pride parade.

#unjust #hatecrimecourt #ignorance #unlawful #impunity #nazi #fascism #polarization #usefulidiots #plutocracy #humanrights

Allow me to wish all United Statesians...

🇺🇸 Happy White Male Elites Preeminence Day! 🇺🇸

#USA #Oligarchy #Plutocracy

by #PaulRosenberg in #Salon:

"The odds that a given state or society can escape such a crisis relatively unscathed are not good, nor does Turchin perceive many signs of hope on the horizon. As he told me in our interview, 'We don't have to do exactly the same thing the Democrats did in the New Deal, but somehow we have to achieve the same result. And I just don't see that happening.'"

https://www.salon.com/2023/07/02/a-short-history-of-civilizational-collapse-are-we-next--and-how-can-we-prevent-it/

#US #history #civilization #democracy #plutocracy #PeterTurchin

8% full #democracy?? Not a chance. No country is democratic. It's rare enough to find a democratic community let alone a country. And democracy is virtually impossible under #capitalism - #plutocracy is written into the law.
#SystemChange

US copyright law is illegitimate, unreasonable, and corrupt. While 'legitimacy' is the most important issue, the 'corrupt' aspect is what first brought my attention to this horrible system.
1. Corrupt because the most recent expansion of copyright rights was a pure use of government power to transfer money from the general public to a group of wealthy lobbyists (the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998; aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act). This involved a retroactive extension of copyright terms that places costs on the citizens without any possibility of achieving the Constitutionally specified goals of copyright -- to promote the creation of new works. This was pure, corrupt plutocracy.
2. Unreasonable because these copyright restrictions were always imposed on the public and intensified without solid evidence that they would actually promote the creation of new works...just the assumption that giving more power to copyright owners would somehow make the world a better place. The current law provides absurdly long and vaguely specified copyright terms (70 years after author's death), such that it's not immediately obvious whether an American is free to copy a book that has been part of American culture since their grandparents were kids (for instance, if they want to give their own kids a copy). Traditional American culture is considered private property for generations, even though the original author was unlikely to be motivated by profits that might be reaped 75 years later.
3. Illegitimate because copying causes no direct harm to the copyright owner. Despite being 'property', copyright does not exist to protecting individual rights, instead it's just state commercial policy, and one that cuts deep into the core freedom to have one's own culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
#copyright #law #freedom #plutocracy #books #music

This is a failure of so-called "representative democracy" or of a republic or whatever you want to call it (currently it looks like a #plutocracy to me, but I digress). The issue here is not conservative versus liberal, not right versus left, nor even necessarily rural versus urban. It is a fundamental, constitutional defect: One group's needs aren't being met because another group is in control. Heavily populated areas (for example, western Oregon?) have more "representation" in government bodies than lightly populated areas in the rest of the state, so the former dominate the government. It's just a matter of math. The system is *designed* that way. Pursue #secession if you want and let me know how that works out for you. The solution is #anarchism

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/politics/oregon-secession-idaho-partisan-divides/index.html

There will come a time when the majority of the British people will come to recognise the biggest political mistake of the 2010s was to fall for the far-right trap of electing, time and again, this sociopath into higher and higher positions of power.

This has exponentially strengthened #plutocracy in the #UK, to the detriment of #democracy.

#ToryMPs
#FarRight
#UnitedKingdom
#censorship
#iamgarylineker
#BorisJohnson

https://youtu.be/0p-Ta83V7iw

@jamesbfg

If it were only a sickness it would be a private matter. But it is not.

Beyond the point of what one needs, the having of wealth invites questions about how to use it, and even about what it even means.

If you have no money, you scramble to survive.

If you have a million dollars, you think about how to live comfortably and help family.

If you have many millions of dollars, you imagine big projects you might do, like founding a company.

But if you have even hundreds of millions, and certainly if you have billions, you start to feel that even companies are too small. The difference between 1 and 2 billion s just differences in shapes of letters on the page unless you take on a project that REQUIRES money of that kind.

Perhaps you just squander the money on something selfish like a mars mission. I say foolish not because many wouldn't want want to see humanity go to Mars, but because if this came up in political discussion, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats would seriously suggest such an outlay. No one thinks it a near-term consensus priority. We have things that need doing, in terms of health, in terms of education, in terms of preparing humankind for climate change. To squander money on that magnitude on a personal project ought to be classed a crime against humanity.

But it seems to be that billionaires do other things that are horrifying for humankind as well. They buy media empires to try to personally influence how everyone on the planet receives information. They buy access to governments that regular people can't have. This means politicians stop caring about the needs of regular people because regular people can be told how to vote by people who control the strings, and because political advertising needs the kind of bucks that are pocket change to these god-like figures. This is the death of democracy.

Democracy relies on many minds contributing wisdom, not a few people broadcasting what many should think and then a zillion people echoing that response. You can claim that all this expenditure doesn't work, but I'm pretty sure these guys wouldn't spend such money if it didn't get results.

And, finally, it's also clear that we (wrongly) revere people according to their wealth, as if it represented personal contribution. Don't believe me? Look at where their money was when they had half of their current wealth and ask what specific acts they took to double that money. I'll bet in nearly 100% of the cases, the answer is that they weren't even paying attention, that they employ money managers. And that those money managers aren't contributing smarts either, they're just putting money on things they think will make money. After a point that is not very large, money doesn't represent contribution, it represents the work of others. In effect, money itself makes money and these people just ride the wave.

Or here's another test: We ask a lot of people to wear their fingers to the bone at work every day. Why do we do that? We imagine it necessary to keep society functioning. In effect, we sacrifices the bulk of our population to pain because we "need" it. But wait, if the people who increasingly have most of the world's wealth really contributed most of the value, why don't we let EVERYONE ELSE retire and just force only those few very productive people to do all the work. Yes, it would be mean, but it's mean what they do to others. And there are far fewer of these supposedly super-valuable people to whom we'd be chaining. MOST people would be freed. So on net, a big improvement in world happiness.

Hey, just a thought exercise. But I bet if you did it, they would QUICKLY admit they didn't really know how to do what their money says they do, just to get out of their enslavement.

I am firmly of the belief we should have a maximum personal wealth (a point of 100% taxation, perhaps indexed to global wealth to accommodate inflation) that basically said after you had a comfortable amount to help yourself and family, "Stop. You've won. You done what we needed of you. You can't earn more. Go home and show yourself valuable in other ways. Cultivate family. Volunteer. Write."

I hear it would be the death of incentive to do this. I doubt it. But I'd be VERY happy to see anyone who isn't incentivized by a modest limit on wealth step out of the way and leave more room for the people who are.

It matters to have more people of modest income than a few people with mega-wealth. At some point the people with mega-wealth become like their own countries, and that's not good.

#Wealth #Economics #Democracy #Capitalism #Plutocracy #Taxation #RegulatoryCapture #Society #Happiness #Family #Enough

Essays by me on related topics:

Tax Policy and the Dewey Decimal System
http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2009/02/tax-policy-and-dewey-decimal-system.html

Enough
http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2011/08/enough.html

Rethinking Mega-Corporations
http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2009/03/rethinking-mega-corporations.html

cc @stever

#BernieSanders
#Ethics
#Integrity
#SocialJustice
#HumanRights
#Equity
#Peace
#Community
#EnvironmentalProtection
#GreenTransition
#JustTransition

#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy
#Corporations
#MilitaryIndustrialComplex
#Consumerism
#ClimateAndEcologicalCrisis

#BernieSanders
#Ethics
#Integrity
#SocialJustice
#HumanRights
#Equity
#Peace
#Community
#EnvironmentalProtection
#GreenTransition
#JustTransition

#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy
#Corporations
#MilitaryIndustrialComplex
#Consumerism
#ClimateAndEcologicaCrisis

#BernieSanders
#Ethics
#Integrity
#SocialJustice
#HumanRights
#Equity
#Peace
#Community
#EnvironmentalProtection
#GreenTransition
#JustTransition

#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy
#Corporations
#MilitaryIndustrialComplex
#Consumerism
#ClimateAndEcologicalEmergency

#JeffreySachs
#UN
#SDGs
#HumanRights
#IndigenousPeoples
#SocialJustice
#Equity
#Peace

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WZ1xc491mnU

#Corporations
#BillionaireClass
#CorruptPoliticians
#CronyCapitalism
#DiversionOfResources
#Colonialism
#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy
#HabitatDestruction
#SixthMassExtinction

#HowardZinn
#CivilDisobedience
#Resistance
#WeThePeople
#SocialJustice
#HumanRights
#Equity
#Peace
#Antiracism
#Community
#BDS
#XR
#ExtinctionRebellion
#ClimateAndEcologicalEmergency

#Corporations
#BillionaireClass
#CorruptPoliticians
#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy

https://fb.watch/hCzL6kZIld/
#RishiSunak PM not elected by the people but selected by his Tory chums.
#BillionaireClass
#Oligarch
#Plutocracy
#Kleptocracy
#CorruptPoliticians
#TheNastyParty