General Discussion

they genuinely are balancing our needs against Wall Street and the billionaire robber barons is a pipe dream.

For decades the American people have been too lazy to become well-informed and many don't even bother to vote. This is because the underlying truth is that Congress has failed again and again in imposing regulation to help our middle class and tax policies that ensure corporations and robber barons are paying in their fair share of taxes so social safety nets can be adequately funded.

This is not the Republicans doing this, either. They are sock puppets owned by billionaire robber barons, funded by the big corporate lobbies and superpacs. Sadly, many on our side take this blood money in campaign donations as well. For example, the Colorado Sun, which is a nonprofit indy paper, reports the following concerning Hickenlooper, one of Colorado's senators:

Financial and Corporate Ties

Top Donor Industries: During his 2020 Senate campaign, the securities and investments industry (Wall Street) was a top contributor to Hickenlooper, providing over $1 million.

Corporate Contributions: Despite calling for a reduction in corporate influence, Hickenlooper has received significant funding from corporate executives and lobbyists, including individuals at firms like Microsoft and UnitedHealth.

Oil and Gas Industry: Throughout his career, including his time as governor, Hickenlooper has accepted donations from the oil and gas industry

My point: We will have to enlarge No Kings and somehow find the will to stop cooperating through general strikes like the one on May 1, 2026 that NONE of the corporate media (except a one-off by Rachel) reported on at all. It got NO play.

Indeed, we are among the most brainwashed people to ever walk on the face of the earth. We have been ruled by corporate funded fearmongers who drive wedges to divide us and make us hate and mistrust each other while crossing our fingers and hoping the federal government won't screw up things too badly.

Those days are coming to an end, and we will see come November when the blue wave does not come and the Republicans, with the help of billionaire robber barons and Wall Street, steal the election so Project 2025 can be cemented and an Orban-like autoritarian regime finalized.

I speak to many people and what I hear from younger people is disgust, a belief their vote does not count, and a growing belief the whole corrupt thing will have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, using blockchain to enforce transparency, punishing any corruption severely, and stressing employee-ownership, coops and benign corporations, community gardens, and economic independence from the shit-show that has been the federal government since around 1964 when the MIC took over and had LBJ send 500,000 troops to Vietnam. Because hey, the MIC investors be hungry for profits! Then and now.

And what I have seen advanced now is a political-industrial complex, carefully put in place by Wall Street to ensure the media companies gain massive profits from ever-more-expensive election campaigns. I get dozens of texts and emails that always go this way, "This outrage-de-jour has been perpetrated by Republicans! We are opposing this. But we need money. Please give us money so we can do the right thing for you!"

Problem is, they don't. The last legislation that partially mitigated high healthcare costs was the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. But that was weak and incomplete because as I have said before, I spent that entire four years being told how great the economy was, while still carrying massive healthcare debt. I see kids at work trying to dig their way out of massive student debt. I see childcare costing an arm and a leg - so much that our birthrate is now too low for the population in the US to grow.

So two questions are germane here:

Why does it have to be like this?

and

What will we choose to build when the Trump administration succeeds in pulling down the whole economy around our knees?

Will we have the political will as a middle/working class to stand up? Or will we continue to sit in our chairs, support corporate media profits with our donations to organizations vowing to 'fight for us?' Will we have the will to look within ourselves and create strong communities where we are? Self-sufficient ones less dependent on federal funding?

We are living the end of an age and we can either close our eyes and bury our proverbial heads in the sand, or dramatically increase civic engagement and reinstitute our moral compass.

The moral compass is the problem you see. The current legal doctrine of shareholder primacy capitalism both encourages and rewards sociopathic behavior. This is why what is happening now is happening now. It is the robber barons whose insatiable greed is causing them to squeeze us all too hard.

The billionaires and Wall Street financiers have sown the wind. Now, what will they reap?