God, this is such a shit society…America is a cautionary tale for the rest of us…Stop worshipping the rich and get them to pay their fair share and make sure they can never pollute the politics.
Shameful situation
Kansas: once again showing how not to run a government. Continuing the Kansas Experiment I see.
And in case you dont scroll down to read this part, I am just going to put it here:
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of “the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%”, while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see “their taxes increase by 1.3%”… almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.
Non-wage income is what’s explicitly exempt from taxes. What bigger “fuck you” to the working class can you even imagine?
And yet they keep managing to convince the working class to vote for them.
because everyone knows that you won’t get anywhere with just wages
Don’t you love America? Filthy rich Americans only wanting to be even more filthy rich. A president doing everything to rob the country blind. And what are the Americans doing? Absolutely nothing.
Admitting your flaws is the first step to changing them. So there is hope.
Who admitted a flaw?
Nobody did, so we’re stuck here.
It’s not hell, but it’s damn close. I’d hate to live on the difference.
Literal third world countries who deal with civil war, bombs falling in the streets, and struggle through daily life still have the wherewithal to feed children.
America is literally worse than third world countries.
This is so dystopic that most people cannot fathom how dystopic it even is
And that’s another day I am thankful to not live in the US. What a fucking shithole
The US, is the definition of: Polish a turd it’s still a turd. By now though it’s just dog shit.
What do they do with criminals in your country?
Criminals in jail don’t do free work for capitalists in most countries.
They’re paid in the US
African slaves in America were paid with room and board too, right?
Just like you. Paid to post.
I wish
So you’re just simping for capitalism and enslavement for free?
Approximately 4 to 75 cents per hour depending. Thats fucking slave labor. A single fucking sachet of ramen noodles requires between 9-12 hours of hard labor to purchase. I genuinely can’t tell if you’re being serious right now so I’ll avoid ripping into you directly and attack what you said instead. That’s the most asinine fucking bullshit I’ve had the displeasure of reading today and thats after reading about how Trump may start WWIII on Monday to protect his ego. “They’re paid in the US” is the second dumbest fucking statement a relatively educated person could make aside from “I voted republican” and deserves to be absolutely fucking roasted just as hard.
Oh good. What multiple of the minimum wage?
They get put into prison to rehabilitate them, instead of just punishing them. They cannot be used as slaves, either.
Are you sure you linked the correct thing?
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
except as a punishment for crime
Those are explicitly for low level crimes. Normally considered ‘community work sentences’, they’re forced unpaid volunteer work in the community that you would have caused harm in. Graffiti or Vandalism for example might have you work with local volunteer groups who go around cleaning up graffiti or repairing broken windows. Basically cleaning up the very thing you caused.
Yes. Slavery was abolished, except for people being punished for a crime: prisoners. That’s why the private prison industry is so profitable.
Prisoners are paid for their labor in the US. How does prison “rehabilitate” any individual?
“Inmates working for state-owned businesses earned between US$0.33 and US$1.41 per hour in 2017 – about twice the amount paid to inmates who work regular prison jobs.”
I wouldn’t exactly call that being paid. It’s more of a pocket money situation.
Rehabilitation in prison is about education and giving people a perspective in life when they leave prison. Just making them suffer will not make them change their ways.
I would call it being paid because they’re being paid, hope that helps
If they were paid $0.01 per hour, would you say they were being paid?
If yes, then clearly, “being paid” is not the dividing line between slavery and freedom, so you should establish how much you think someone should be paid for it to not be slavery.
Yes, I would say that they were being paid, on account of the payments
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the help! That’s very Elon of you.
Thanks for the downvote, really great to find out this place is even worse than Reddit
What do you think the point of prison is, lmmfao?
The caveat at the bottom is telling. It strikes me that this incarcerated men knew they had to caveat the donation or it would get spent on SUV maintenance or something.
It gets better. Capitalism is designed to make sure you work for the rest of your life. Like a cow or sheep. While any rich person doesnt need to work or do shit. The aristocrats were all in on capitalism when it first gained traction. I wonder why?
too add on, in america mostly people are expected to “launch” the moment they turn 18 without any financial/job stability, so some dont because of that.
The aristocrats were all in on capitalism when it first gained traction
No they weren’t. The aristocrats were upset that the bourgeoisie were getting uppity and taking their power. Read the communist manifesto, it was written back when capitalism was first overtaking feudalism. People were salty! The French had a revolution!
Yeah and guess who was funding both sides and the start of capitalism? Play both sides is the best strategy.
The same people weren’t playing both sides. There were aristocrats who saw the writing on the wall and joined with the proletariat partially so they could keep their heads and partially because they figured they could come out as the new aristocracy if they played along. Plenty of aristocrats made the other choice and got beheaded.
The American dream narrative makes people falsely believe that they too can eventually become an aristocrat such that, against their own interests, they fail to stand in solidarity to hold them accountable.
All it takes is to look at the graphic of historic social mobility in the US to know that the American Dream is dead, buried, then was exhumed, incinerated and the billionaires pissed on its ashes.
Step one, don’t let people think. What are the chances of me becoming dont-need-to-work-a-day-more-in-my-entire-life rich, given zero relatives at that level of wealth and any country of residence? Practically zero, unless I am something exceptional
I have no idea how it happens that so many fail to see even that
I don’t believe the people are willing to challenge the status quo.
I guess they need more suffering yet.
Given the American dream, there must exist an American sleep paralysis demon.
You seem to be correct
I think that’s a pessimistic perspective. Especially when we have clear examples of what real material changes, even at the smallest levels of government, awaken people from that same pessimism.
The idea that further suffering is a requirement for progress is exactly what capitalism is offering. That better things aren’t possible.
The conservatives will believe it when they are paying over $6 a gallon for gas. That the suffering is a requirement for progress.
The left will believe it as a means of justifying inaction. That “the masses are just not there yet. They need to suffer more”.
The job of the left is to get the masses there. To show them what a functioning system actually looks like. That pot holes can be filled. That children can have daycare. That groceries can be affordable. That wars can end. That genocide is not a defensive measure.
If there is no hope, the amount of suffering required to invoke change will never be directed into unified action. The frustration and suffering of the masses will continue to grasp to the scapegoats of the fascist. Because the fascist offer them a hope (falsely) for less suffering.
You can’t just wait until people are suffering to the point that they build the guillotines. People build the guillotines when they are suffering and have an organized direction and example of a means of reducing suffering.
The levels of suffering are not the limitation right now. The amount of organization and unity within the left is what is limited. And that is changing quickly. We are building a movement to direct the anger of the masses towards the powers of capital that are causing it.
Realism is not pessimism.
The only way maga stops being transphobic and racist is when they or their loved ones are too hurt and hungry to care. Yes I do think this lowly of bigots.
Until then it’s fuck you and your kids from them.
Keep telling yourself you’re doing enough to enact change tho. Don’t let reality make you sad.
Hell, that’s exactly how they are going to describe the downfall of this society. The sane and capable didn’t want reality to make them sad, so they downplayed everything around them and talked hopeful rainbows and sunshine while everything imploded due to bad faith actors they ignored.
I am hopeful that the bad people will feel enough pain to focus inward instead of outward. Sorry if that isn’t a kind enough perspective for you. It’s what they deserve anyway, and the only realistic avenue for change.
When I talked about the leftist using pessimism as a means to justify their own inaction; you didn’t have to give me a textbook example of that. But, thanks I guess.
Thanks dipshit but I vote. Yes your own lame ass as a straw man instead.
Damn, when someone uses “I vote” as their example for being active for positive change. You gotta have something better than that after that massive rant of negativity towards others. Come on mate. That’s just embarrassing.
I think when gas prices get rough enough, America will have its come to Jesus moment. We’re only seeing the beginning.
We need stakeholder primacy instead of their bs shareholder primacy.
What was the retirement age in the Soviet Union?
Let’s do a better example, how much did living standards, health, happiness, and retirement age improve when socialism was implemented and monarchism was pushed out? How much did those metrics fall when capitalism was introduced?
55/60 for women/men but the pension wasn’t exactly high. Life expectancy 65 for men, 74 for women. Population was still growing too. Retirement as a concept requires enough young people to serve the needs of the old.
What is your goal with this question?
To find out what the answer is. What was your goal in downvoting it?
Oh, dearie me, a pure seeker of knowledge. Sorry, it’s just that no one had mentioned the Soviet Union. And people usually bring up things that read like non-sequiturs when they want to establish a connection.
And I didn’t downvote. Yet. I usually wait to downvote until a commenter leaves little doubt that they’re a dickhead.
And I didn’t downvote
Sure, I’ll definitely take this unverifiable protestation of innocence entirely seriously
Watch those downvote numbers. Because they’re all about to increase by at least one now.
Thank you for admitting to brigading
Lol. You refer to that country as an example?
An example of what?
Lol again. That a serious question?
Nah fuck that you prove to me humanity can do an economy properly than we have a conversation. At this point we will all die before we ever have a proper economy. The greed of the few out weigh the needs of the many.
Over 90% of Chinese adults own their own home.
That’s not proof an economy works. That’s proof you can own a home.
800 million people lifted out of poverty in 40 years.
Holy shit you make a point and then lose reality. Why the fuck do you think those people were in poverty in the first place? You think what made them in poverty disappeared or was masked? There are still rich, poor and middle class. They have a broken economy because everyone has a broken economy.
Calm down, big guy. I’m saying their economy is working waaaaay better than any western neoliberal capitalist structures.
A proper economy is one where the people who need things more pay more than the people who need them less. That’s how we know what things should cost.
So if someone needs a kidney, but someone richer also needs a kidney, they die?
Is that why most people can’t afford and don’t receive healthcare in America?
Most people in the United States can afford and do receive healthcare, hope that helps
Yeah like communism on paper why dont you apply that?
Why do we even have these orphan crushing machines, anyway?
Well if we got rid of it, it would be unfair to all the orphans who have already been crushed!
I so hate that that is a reply given on similar issues - specifically heard it the most with college loan forgiveness. It gives me a sad.
Because only the sound of orphans being crushed can fill the dragon’s empty heart with joy. Collectively, we could defeat it, but it might burn down all the land in the fight…
Also, most people cheer for the sacrifices - it’s not their children, after all.
because suffering is the lubrication for the machinery of america.
Hey, if they aren’t allowed to kill whales anymore, how else would they gather the oil for lubrication? Do people even think anymore?
There are lots of jobs that depend on the orphan crushing industry. Do you want them to suffer?
No one, and I mean NO ONE, ever thinks of the poor shareholders. What a sad reality we live in…
And people keep forgetting those poor orphans. You want to take their meaning in life away from them? Shame on you!
I understood that reference.
Prison labor to cover prison lunches for children in debt.
Didn’t Marx predict this or something?
Humanity persists despite the horrors
13th amendment. Slave labour baked right in. Just have to jail them.
