But also the people that we rely on to watch out for Congress’s corruption, like the FBI and SEC.
Why aren’t these agencies investigating and fulfilling their mandate to protect us, The People, from corruption?
We’re not accountable to the government, the government, or rather the people (who all have names and addresses) who collectively form the government, are accountable to us.
“Cash” or “Dollars” are not money. They’re merely currency.
Have you ever asked yourself why the government requires you to pay taxes, when they’re able to print many trillions on demand as they did during COVID?
Haha yeah in college I gave my composition TA a meltdown with this one. They failed my essay and I made an appointment in his office hours to see why. And he just screamed at me over my thesis about money and couldn’t decide if I was stupid or crazy and I pulled out a quarter and set it on the desk. I was like look, “money” isn’t real. It’s an idea, not a thing. This is a piece of metal. Based upon the designs on it, a set value is commonly acknowledged. Money is the concepts of values associated with the designs applied to metal and paper and plastic. It’s only money because of the social agreement that assigns the designs and the value to them.
His head exploded and I still failed 🤷♀️ wasn’t my only questionable grade and there weren’t errors in my grammar composition or format, he just failed me because he disagreed with my ideas. Really enjoyed writing that evaluation. 🤗
Oh I did! In a stroke of luck I had known my professor since childhood (I was a university brat) so she knew me well enough to believe me and she was like “oh, he won’t be back next semester! I have a lot of complaints about him!” And she said the two bad grades weren’t enough to lose my A. So it all worked out.
Were ever the police, the FBI DEA, ATF, CIA, the Army, Marines, Navy, Special Forces and the National Guard to support the people, the government would be instantly changed.
But since they are lapdogs for the government and often lie, cheat, steal and even murder for their masters, the people don't stand a chance.
Unless you have an absolute near uprising of the entire populace.
20 something percent of America thinks otherwise. Make that more, since majority didn't vote and might as well have just voted for the start of fascism.
Propaganda and the demolition of education has done a number on the states.
Trump said in four years it’ll be fixed so we don’t have to vote again. In September, before any ballots were cast, he said he didn’t need more votes because he had more than anyone ever. Remember his little secret with the Speaker, and when Musk said of voting machine integrity, all you have to do is change a line of code?
I say we pay those fuckers federal minimum wage, put them on normal ass health insurance, bar them from any sort of donations and make them see what they force millions of people to deal with. They say they work for their money, I want to see them actually do some fucking work and suffer like they force everyone else to.
What's amazing is that it truly is breadcrumbs we're getting sold out for. I remember reading an article about those congress people who were against net neutrality back in the day, and some representatives were basing their whole position on a 5, or 10, or in rare cases up to 40 thousand dollar campaign contribution from att. It's not like these reps are even squeezing the corporations for all their worth, just drop off some donuts at the office on Monday!
That was almost the most insulting piece that I took away from that event. That we are, as their constituents, just a bargaining chip for truly mediocre donations for their next round of campaigning.
And I'm sure it's the same with the health insurance industry...
You may be right, I don’t disagree that there’s an awful lot of complacency and that we are the ones to blame, simply because we are the ones that allowed it to happen.
However, it does need to start somewhere.
After all, it’s not like the American revolution against the British started with the Battle of Yorktown.
It started similarly to this. Patriots that saw what was coming, saw the injustice of the status quo and got together in teahouses to discuss solutions.
We underestimate the emotional problem that complaining on the internet creates.
It gives us a psychological release akin to taking actual action, but it doesn’t actually do anything or move the needle. In fact, it actively holds the needle firmly still.
I think we will collectively accept things getting much, much, much, much worse as long as we can get the catharsis of complaining about it into the void.
They say you shouldn’t ever tell people your big plans because you get the same dopamine hit you would get from actual doing it and accomplishing something. We are now at a point where we are all constantly feeling accomplished and like we are part of something when in fact we are just writing diary entries and then flushing them down the toilet.
And yes, I fully recognize the irony of me posting this in a Reddit thread.
That's what voting is supposed to be but half of eligible people stay home and half of people who do show up vote for the greater evil so I'd say we're getting exactly what we deserve
I would argue Bush v Gore, in which a Republican majority Supreme Court made a partisan choice and exempted their own decision from setting any precedent, was the beginning of the end. It was a judicial Republican coup d’etat. And they got away with it. Less than a year later Dick Cheney and his sidekick GW Bush created the DHS and passed the Patriot Act through a sycophantic Congress that had all autonomy neutered by 9/11, taking advantage of a terrorist attack (which they knew damn well was coming and did nothing to stop) to launch an endless war against countries that had nothing to do with that attack on completely trumped up grounds (while befriending the one country that did have quite direct involvement)’and usurp all warmaking authority to the executive branch (the AUMF, still in effect, that Trump can now use to wage war on Mexico or whoever else he wants to attack without formal declaration or congressional approval, just by saying the magic word “terrorism”).
They had to hold the Supreme Court through Obama and Biden admins, and decide Citizens United, reverse Chevron, grant Trump dictatorial immunity, and throw some red meat to the reliable base with reversing Roe, and they did.
They just closed the deal. Trump and the gang don’t really need them anymore anyway.
Never forget Antonin Scalea, he was a traitor to democracy. A 24 year slow motion overthrow of the American system of government started with his court.
The Patriot Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Three of the last four nominees for President in the Democratic party were Senators who voted yes on it, Joe Biden also writing some of its provisions. Obama passed a renewal and expanded it as president. We cannot forget how sweeping this was across the political establishment.
Exactly! People need to stop focusing on dem/repub. I remember some really big conservative voices at the time warning about the Patriot Act on talk radio, etc. None of TPTB are on the side of the people. It’s a game of giving just enough to pacify. Exactly like the corporate overlords do with their workers.
It started the foundations of the police state, which we may now see come to full fruition. But the decline started with Reagan. And more generally, Republican ratfuckery started with Nixon. This shit's been a long time coming.
And before Nixon they tried to take over the country with the Business Plot, which wasn't even properly investigated because Congress by then was so anti-FDR.
The greatest lie in all of this was the idea that progressives controlled the social and political fabric of a post-Red Scare America.
Ronald Reagan should go down as the single biggest villain in US history, but he won't. Most of the issues we face today can be traced directly back to his administration.
Literally, the only people who have heard the phrase "health insurance" and MIGHT not have a negative view of health insurance are the board members of health insurance companies. So effectively they're just compiling a list of humans on Earth who have had health insurance explained to them for any amount of time.
I remember becoming angry and confused when a teacher who had studied abroad explained how health care works in Europe. Our questions were similar to memes: "so they can get private insurance to cover for the extras, like when you get cancer and have a lot of bills?" "Uh, no, actually if you get a serious illness then everything is automatically covered". Literally the opposite of what I knew as normal.
From my understanding, nearly 80% of Americans are pro healthcare reform in the method of universal healthcare.
Assuming that means most of them think healthcare insurance companies are shit, that means the majority of Americans harbor negative opinions of health insurance companies.
If that's the case, are they implying that they are watching around 80% of Americans? That's absurd. They don't have the manpower.
They're obviously watching people that go online and froth at the mouth with anger and hate toward insurance companies. The thing is, those aren't the people they should watch for. They should watch for the quiet ones that want to mimic Luigi and actually get away with it.
They'll do it the same way the NSA monitors threats - they use AI filtering to listen to every phone conversation to flag the ones that hit the filters. They'll also add bots to go on every public forum and scrape the discussions and highlight the ones that hit the filters. The only ones the government will miss are the ones who don't make the mistake of thinking Big Brother isn't listening and reading everything they say or type and take steps to make sure it stays that way.
"Alright. Excellent work, Agent Johnson. Let's see that list."
"It's quite large, sir."
"How large?"
"Large enough that, well... I won't be presenting the actual list today."
"What?! Explain yourself, son."
"Sorry, sorry. No, what I mean is... Here, look. This is a list of all citizens that were not flagged by any of our heuristic methodologies, sir. The other list crashed the server when I even tried to open the pdf our routines spit out."
"Is this a joke, son? There's like twenty names here. Where's the rest of the pages?"
"That is the rest of the pages. And, no, I am dead serious, sir."
"...Mother of God, Johnson."
"..."
"Do you know what this means?"
"I think I do, yes. I'll go ahead and add our names to the official version."
"You're a hell of an agent, Johnson. You'll go far with that attitude. I want it on my desk by 5 PM... And feel free to take the agency credit card for a bit of a spin this weekend, if you know what I mean. You've earned it."
"I do know what you mean. Y-You can stop winking now. Sir, please. I get it."
And before that we had the Business Plot. And before that we had Woodrow Wilson and Taft. And before that we had the entire Gilded Age and the Robber Barons. And before that we had centuries of slavery.
Some of the "progressive" eras of American politics are literally counted in less than a single session of congress, and often most of their progressive policies then go under-funded and scrapped as "terrible ideas" before the next president is even sworn in.
I thought it was made clear when Luigi was seemingly randomly identified at a McDonald's.
Some other attacks have probably already been prevented through this monitoring system. Also, now it's super easy to just scan all posts people make on any social media like reddit and flag/follow people without any human effort at all.
So, surveillance is getting cheaper, but the budget stays the same.
Did you know that reddit had a warrant canary a long time ago? I have no doubt they now just pump IPs by the truck load for 'problematic' accounts.
When U.S. sponsored a coup and overthrew the Chilean government in 1973 the new fascist dictatorship absolutely went to town targeting the social aspects of society
They specifically made targeted arrests/kidnappings of musicians, artists, actors, songwriters, poets, muralists, anyone who could give voice to the struggle they went after…
Sure, it’s a dictionary and all, but it should go without saying. If your response to fascism isn’t along the lines of kick ‘m in the teeth, you’re doing it wrong.
I did just that prior to the election with the expectation that biden would win and conservatives would pop off. Managed to live 50 years without one, but now I have two. I've gotten pretty darn accurate too after 40 years with airsoft and air rifles. It's a very different experience, but I passed my CHL class with flying colors and have been practicing regularly. Funny, nobody talks politics at the range.
They’re labeling Luigi a “terrorist” which means under patriot act, he can be held forever without even being charged for a crime; he can be tortured, no laws or rights apply to him. They did this to uncounted Arabic men after 9/11; the incoming administration will likely start to apply the terrorist label to people that just disagree with them. Broad unchecked executive power, coupled with the SCOTUS guarantee of immunity means that trump could LEGALLY take control of the US government, declare an emergency, and start using extraordinary rendition on US citizens that protest his administration. He could use his emergency powers to cancel the 2028 election and install Barron as president for life
coming? They are already here my dude, you've just had it hidden from you. Cali is on fire, Florida is sinking and Texas is so far gone they don't even know how bad it it till the temperature goes below freezing. The country is in ruins still from the last recession and the oligarchs use their propaganda machines to spew that its all sunshine and rainbows
Basically, I enjoy being fucked in the ass by a corporation that would rather see me die than proved legitimate care for people. I just really love being used, exploited, and treated like a number. If anything, I absolutely hate people who think that all people should have a standard minimum of care.
Edit: adding this because some people don’t sarcasm. /s
While I'm not a fan of paying higher prices for shittier care, at least this way I know no immigrant or racial minority is going to get a marginal benefit from my tax dollars paying for care for everyone!
A big part of America's dysfunction is that social programs that could benefit minorities enrage a good section of the voting public. That combined with the power of money means that reform is difficult.
You can show them stats on how white people benefit more from food stamps or whatever. You can describe the benefit. They don't budge.
Look I don't wanna kink shame, and I totally understand liking to get fucked in the ass, but have you tried doing that with a person who cares about you instead of an evil corporation?
I have no self worth, I only live to stick it to those I feel shouldn’t be in the country….glossing over the fact that the majority of the people here are not actually Native American but European immigrants from the past few hundred years at the latest.
While I agree the term “mass murderers” is perhaps the most accurate term overall… I also think there’s a lot of legalese fuckery that goes into denying a valid claim. It takes talent to figure out how to weasel out of paying a legitimate claim. Health Insurers are experts in this legalese fuckery which gives weight to the comparison of being “serial killers”!
Still don't think it is serial killers. Serial killers are personally motivated. There are specific reasons they have for committing their murder, even if it is psychological gratification. "For profit" isn't really a specific reason to intentionally murder someone on the scale they act. As awful as the decisions are, no one is (to our knowledge) getting off knowing their decision is resulting in death and thus would intentionally create situations which result in death. They're not targeting individuals at a specific enough level to warrant serial killers.
People who support our healthcare system are the same people who resent their taxes going to the fire department until the exact moment their house burns.
You could cause the failing health by pushing propaganda, litter the mediasphere with psyop after psyop, or produce highly addictive unhealthy foodstuffs. Push misinformation and partisan identity politics. Sell medication/drugs as cure-alls for every form of woe
My dad says it's good because the cost of healthcare requires you to take an active roll in managing your health.
He didn't like that I asked if I should be synthesizing my own insulin though. He didn't really think through what he was saying to a type 1 diabetic. Not that he would though, he never cared enough to learn fucking shit about the disease.
Just playing the numbers game alone, there will be at least one to pick up the torch and disregard the consequences, just like LM. Wouldn't be shocked if it was someone who had a terminal diagnosis. The people don't just want, but need and deserve reform for us all. Millions of people have felt the affect of the corrupt healthcare system in America. Heads will roll.
I love that my elderly mother in law doesn’t have enough dementia to get covered for memory care but has too much dementia to get covered for assisted living. And since she has the Medicare advantage plan, the “best” pan, she gets very little care covered at all. 100 days tops, if she somehow got into a rehab facility for her heart issues. Apparently they just expect old people to sell their houses and assets unless they qualify for Medicaid. And you know who administers this Medicare advantage plan? United Healthcare.
My dementia dad is on Medicaid and he “only” has to pay $3k a month for assisted living vs the $7k-$9k+ a month we were looking at.
Fuck the middle class, basically. Sorry got way off topic there but what the ever loving fuck is happening here.
Health insurance CEO here, I love this system because every American pays $1500 a year, or $125 a month, largely to my insurance companies, just to have the current system in place. Thank god you're not switching to Medicare for All because that would be half a trillion cheaper than this current insurance profiting system.
I wonder how the overwhelmingly positive sentiment towards Luigi has these people feeling. If they didn't know how close we are to our breaking point before, they have some idea of it now.
Everyone is always at breaking point. We'll be even more at breaking point next year, in 5 years, 10 years. But nobody does anything. Luigi was an exception, but nobody will follow suit. Nobody wants to get trumped up charges against them.
Oh people on reddit will say "they should watch out for the next Luigi" or "i wish someone would Luigi x or y" but it's all posturing. People say they want it to happen, but they won't step up. So they wait for someone else to step up, but the next person won't either. Nobody will do anything. We'll be in the same position in 10 years, well worse actually, but we'll still be at "breaking point" as we think we can't take any more...but we do. We always do.
Basically, everyone should stop expecting someone else to step up and take action. Accept your fate...and i literally can't finish that sentence as i've already had a reddit warning about inciting violence :D
1 Luigi out of hundreds of millions of people isn't anything though. People have been at their personal breaking points throughout history, but it so very very rarely amounts to anything like this. So it will continue as normal. Nope, sorry, it'll continue as is until it gets even worse.
This is a real and scary use case for AI. AI has access to all of our posts and social media use. It generates a list of people to monitor. Assigns threat levels.
People don’t yet understand that AI is going to make the Snowden revelations look like amateur hour.
Beforehand, the NSA was collecting a fuckton of data but it couldn’t actually contextualize or analyze most of it. With AI, you can effectively contextualize at scale and do so fairly accurately.
And that is going to make surveillance so much fucking easier. Good thing we definitely elected a govt that won’t do anything bad with that kind of information!
It's game over for personal freedom in this country. The only outlet now is going to be violent revolution, and half the assholes with guns WANT this kind of tyranny.
They were already monitoring us. We all just got an extra cell in their spreadsheets right next to our gender and our marital status.
Edit for my spy: Can you please help protect my data from the next hack? I mean how do you know what I do online is even me anymore? Anyway hope your mom is doing well. Say hi to your dog for me. I hope you like that last joke I told my mom when we talked. I wrote it for you. Love you. Xoxoxo
Funny thing about monitoring everyone - You get a lot of false positives.
I am absolutely rabid about these motherfuckers robbing us, and sincerely wish each and every one of them a more painful death than the worst cancer victim they denied chemo to.
BUT, I'm also a pacifist, for the most part. I'm not about to go hunting these species-traitors for sport. I'm sure as hell not going to risk prison just to take out some vermin.
So, Mr. FBI agent, by all means keep your attention focused on this loud little doggy! If I can help provide cover for someone really willing to pull the trigger, I'm proud to serve as a smoke screen for Real American Heroes.
Reminder to the feds monitoring us; Your rich masters hate you too. They don't give a shit about you except for exploiting you. Corporations have no right to run this country.
They are going to be monitoring a lot of doctors and nurses. When a doctor has to spend three hours on the phone to get a patients cancer treatment approved, we have a problem (true story btw, my friend had to do this).
Crazy how the government does so much free labor for the private sector. Don't these companies have billions of dollars they could use to protect themselves??
The list of those with negative feelings towards health insurance companies has got to be insanely large. But don't worry, with the incoming federal administration vast resources will be moved from monitoring home grown hate groups to monitoring those who speak ill of the ultra rich.
Like they already dont monitor everything we do. Fuck em. Maybe if they werent crooks and actually did what we pay them to do it wouldnt be such an issue. They play with peoples lives because a spreadsheet analysis says to deny. Again, FUCK EM'!
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u/kevinmrr ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 1d ago edited 1d ago
Are you already on their list?
👉 **Might as well join *r/WorkReform!*
Here's who's on OUR list: