I've been trying to post less online because it's, well, depressing. But I agree with you 1000%. The main way to curtail late stage crony capitalism is to rais

I've been trying to post less online because it's, well, depressing. But I agree with you 1000%. The main way to curtail late stage crony capitalism is to raise taxes on the wealthy. We're at about half the tax rate that sustains a healthy middle class, which is directly correlated with wages being half what they should be, the lack of personal savings for the bottom half of the population, etc. It's been well-understood since the Great Depression, but empires have always known that there's a limit to what workers will accept before they revolt. I believe that we passed the point of stability around the Dot Bomb and 9/11 2001. But a strong argument could be made that the writing was on the wall by 1990 when the USSR separated but world powers kept funding their own militaries to create new bogeymen like terrorism to control the population. Everything since has been theater: from the way we reward financiers and penalize employees, to how our legal system protects status quo players like the RIAA/MPAA, and how threats to our environments are just treated as externalities and not addressed directly because that goes against "free market" capitalism. I learned about the situation we're in today with looming global threats like nationalism and fascism in high school AP government class back in maybe 1993. Back then, guys like Robert Bork, Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh were curiosities, and Newt Gingrich was just getting started. Never in our wildest dreams would we have imagined that Fox News would dominate all media, thanks to bitter old men like Rupert Murdoch. They created such a dark reality that I feel awful for young people today who think that this is how it always was and always will be. The silver lining is that every bully eventually realizes that everyone is laughing at him. I think we're in one of those moments now with stuff like the TikTok ban hearings illustrating how comically out of touch bitter old men are. Their time is ending, and I still hold out hope that when Gen X attains power in government, we'll pull the plug on the fear mongering. But I'm generally wrong about these things, so I also expect the powers that be will prevent us from ever gaining any power whatsoever. Which is why it's so important to organize outside of whatever circles the mainstream media deems appropriate. Thankfully Gen Z appears to be doing just that.