4 ms·

the three steps you mention do not operate like that, in reality. 1 - most news is published by one of a few conglomerates. It is impossible to be competitive

the three steps you mention do not operate like that, in reality. 1 - most news is published by one of a few conglomerates. It is impossible to be competitive in this space without a staggeringly large bankroll, and most 'competition' is just the illusion of, not the genuine article. An example of this is the chairman of the Associated Press (nominally a non profit news organization) also being the CEO of Hearst Communications (named for William Randolph Hearst - one of those conglomerates I'm referring to) 2 - Things getting in between your opinion (that is, anyone's opinion) and enacted policy: first-past-the-post elections, the two party system, gerrymandering, the Senate (unless you live in Vermont, Wyoming, or one of the Dakotas), the DNC, the RNC, primaries, voting happening on a single day, voting not being a national holiday, the supreme court, relying on representatives rather than voting directly, corporations are people, and money buys elections.This list is incomplete but touches on most of the key players. You get the picture. 3 - Not quite sure where to start with this. see (1) and (2) above. The thing is, it's a really complicated mess and like any sufficiently complex system, it's nearly impossible to reason about without making some deep assumptions. For a light introduction to the scope of the situation, I recommend reading Republic Lost, by Lawrence Lessig. He's a constitutional scholar who started talking about all this before the system started to show late-stage symptoms of what's probably terminal cancer, from a societal perspective.

graycat 4y ago
> the three steps you mention do not operate like that, in reality. Uh, my post had > Sooo, so for extreme clarity and simplicity, let's break this issue down to about the 2nd grade: and you went to at least the high school level!!! > 3 - Not quite sure where to start with this. see (1) and (2) above. Moving up to, say, the high school level where the students can drive a car and might have an after school job to pay for the gas, if everyone who, say, wanted $2 a gallon gas again would just write their Representative and two Senators, then ... something would happen!! Congress, i.e., a MAJORITY in Congress, has a LOT of power. Wanting $2 a gallon of gas again sounds to me like a MAJORITY!! If 90+% of the voters would write about gas prices, or grocery prices, or whatever, then, yup, things would happen. That's my explanation of Step 3 -- not complicated or weak, both simple and strong, voters just WRITE. I wrote: Each Rep/Sen has a Web site with features that make sending an email really easy. I got back messages, canned from my Senators and a personal one from my Rep. Didn't notice much change in grocery prices yet!! For Step 3, my guess is that simple can be strong and actually work. But, I don't know why Step 3 seems not to work. I would have thought, guessed, bet, going back to some of the wars, economic situations, inflation, interest rates, etc. people would be packed together on the Mall from Congress (the Capitol building) to the Washington Monument protesting. But, nope, doesn't/didn't happen, not very densely "packed". For responding to the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems that there was a strong majority right away, and it was a big change -- draft, blood, money, war production, ships, planes, supplies, The Bomb, having a LOT of women in factories, ..., and all from just that one attack. Soooo, we have some data: Gas prices, inflation, interest rates, massive violation of immigration laws, ... don't quickly yield a majority but bombing Pearl Harbor did. Soooo, the necessary condition for a majority is somewhere between those two!!! Soooo, for Step 3, can still keep it simple: When enough people are angry enough, they WILL complain enough, and then things WILL change.
- pksebben 4y ago
  God, I wish you were right. I felt the same way for a long time. At this stage, the only way I see it going is the system collapses on itself. There's no reason for them to listen and there's nothing we can do about it, though. We can get as mad as we like, they have militarized police with MRAPs and drones. Heck, there were protests. Recently. All over the place - but the police have been defunded of nothing whatsoever and they still have qualified immunity. Congress just kinda doesn't need to care, so they don't; with one or two exceptions.

graycat 4y ago

> the three steps you mention do not operate like that, in reality. Uh, my post had > Sooo, so for extreme clarity and simplicity, let's break this issue down to about the 2nd grade: and you went to at least the high school level!!! > 3 - Not quite sure where to start with this. see (1) and (2) above. Moving up to, say, the high school level where the students can drive a car and might have an after school job to pay for the gas, if everyone who, say, wanted $2 a gallon gas again would just write their Representative and two Senators, then ... something would happen!! Congress, i.e., a MAJORITY in Congress, has a LOT of power. Wanting $2 a gallon of gas again sounds to me like a MAJORITY!! If 90+% of the voters would write about gas prices, or grocery prices, or whatever, then, yup, things would happen. That's my explanation of Step 3 -- not complicated or weak, both simple and strong, voters just WRITE. I wrote: Each Rep/Sen has a Web site with features that make sending an email really easy. I got back messages, canned from my Senators and a personal one from my Rep. Didn't notice much change in grocery prices yet!! For Step 3, my guess is that simple can be strong and actually work. But, I don't know why Step 3 seems not to work. I would have thought, guessed, bet, going back to some of the wars, economic situations, inflation, interest rates, etc. people would be packed together on the Mall from Congress (the Capitol building) to the Washington Monument protesting. But, nope, doesn't/didn't happen, not very densely "packed". For responding to the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems that there was a strong majority right away, and it was a big change -- draft, blood, money, war production, ships, planes, supplies, The Bomb, having a LOT of women in factories, ..., and all from just that one attack. Soooo, we have some data: Gas prices, inflation, interest rates, massive violation of immigration laws, ... don't quickly yield a majority but bombing Pearl Harbor did. Soooo, the necessary condition for a majority is somewhere between those two!!! Soooo, for Step 3, can still keep it simple: When enough people are angry enough, they WILL complain enough, and then things WILL change.

pksebben 4y ago
God, I wish you were right. I felt the same way for a long time. At this stage, the only way I see it going is the system collapses on itself. There's no reason for them to listen and there's nothing we can do about it, though. We can get as mad as we like, they have militarized police with MRAPs and drones. Heck, there were protests. Recently. All over the place - but the police have been defunded of nothing whatsoever and they still have qualified immunity. Congress just kinda doesn't need to care, so they don't; with one or two exceptions.