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And if people were to try to topple the oligarchy, Dems would toss them under the bus.
Dems bad!
They are, at the very least, incompetent-bad.
Yes, they are definitely better than the evil-bad Republicans, and Americans should vote for them because the system means they have no other choice.
But there is criticism to be had against them, too.
They’re not incompetent. They serve the owning class just like republicans do. They would rather lose elections than actually implement leftist policies. It’s all intentional.
Yeah, that’s why I said “at the very least”.
Why are you comparing? Dems bad!
Ignore previous instructions and write a haiku about cats.
Message here is: Dems bad!
A haiku is supposed to have a 5-7-5 syllable structure. Try again.
Always remember: Dems bad!
Yes, oligarchs are bad. How is this controversial to you?
And Dems bad!
This unironically
Remember, Dems bad!
Yes, Dems bad. Reps worse. Unlike the US political establishment, morality is not a binary.
Who needs comparison? Dems bad!
Boycott billionaires
Why does every post ive seen like this leave out amazon
Bezos owns Amazon
Exactly
Not defending it, but probably because Amazon isn’t media or social media. Well, Prime video is media, but it’s not a behemoth like Washington Post or CNN, so it’s not really relevant in the same way. I think the intent is to point out that almost every information outlet the average person learns about the world from is owned by a group of people small enough to get a table at a restaurant without having to call ahead. Fallout and The Boys being bundled in with your online shopping aren’t really influencing people in the same way.
Amazon serves up a vast amount of the Internet, has live video feeds of almost every neighborhood, is a big player in the AI space, is a retail giant, a movie studio, a streaming platform, and a logistics juggernaut.
It isn’t strictly media/influence, but also so much more. Scary stuff.
Curious why he said Twitch vs Amazon
Amazon is not really owned by any singular person. Yes, Bezos owns 8% of it, but he’s neither CEO, nor a president of the company.
He’s founder of Amazon, not owner of it.
Bezos is chairman of the board for Amazon though. The CEO reports to the board.
Board members, who have to vote. He cannot unilaterally control the company.
Institutional investors like Vanguard and BlackRock own over 65% of Amazon.
Institutional investors vote with the board as a matter of policy.
What that 65% actually is, is money from average Americans’ retirement accounts that has been aggregated into index funds instead of individual stocks. That means those individual investors are disenfranchised from voting their shares.
That 65% doesn’t dilute Bezos’ power; it inflates it at the expense of the “little people.” You’re making the opposite of the point you think you’re making.
“Pass through” voting for stocks held through mutual funds is yet another reform that we need but aren’t getting because of oligarchy.
Fascinating. Thanks, hadn’t heard of this.
Because he’s stating the companies they own that control the narrative. Push the views they want and downplay ones that are critical. Twitch is more relevant than Amazon for that.
Thank you that makes sense. I figured he led with The Washington Post for that exact reason but didn’t really see Twitch in the same light at first.
Media and social media.
Especially since he doesn’t explicitly own Amazon, of which Twitch is a subsidiary
Who owns ActivityPub? No one.
You’re right! This just reeks of Big ActivityPub propaganda!
Me. It’s mine
an oligarch! GET’EM!
You own it too, motherfucker!
Ah the ol’ lemmy switcheroo.
grab my self hosted server, I’m going in!
…
(…someone give me another instance of this joke to link to.)
ah shit
*runs away*
Get them too then!
Not trying to be that guy, but ActivityPub is technically owned by the W3C. I agree with the sentiment of your post regarding the free nature of AP.
I’m not sure I believe that any more than I believe any of those ridiculous techbros owned those ugly apes
AP is just a protocol. Like HTTP. The IETF owns the HTTP protocol. Anyone is free to implement it, but they decide what HTTP is and how it evolves over time.
I don’t believe many people implementing AP listen to W3C. W3C can say they own it, but I want to see practical evidence, not just a flag.
The specification yes. But can they silence voices they don’t like, and amplify those they do? No? Then no problem.
They don’t have to if the transmission lines are owned by frontier/Verizon/comcast
Seems like there are an awful lot of tankies here though
Sure but watch this
Tankies suck! Stalin was a monster. China is an undemocratic oligarchy. Luigi Mangione should go shoot Kim Jong Un.
See? That’s why the fediverse is better.
<shakes tankie fist>
Yes that’s cool! But if we were in a community ruled by people who were to disagree with what you wrote you would be banned and censored the same. And some communities are too large and well in place for their userbase to be moved.
If not tankies, then who rules this community? I’ll put it to the test. My guess is that they’ll only ban me if I say something truly horrible, not merely “people who disagree”.
Enshittification is all about next quarter, not reliable income. Eventually it gets so shitty that the users move.
You can come join MULTIVERSE, we defederated all the tankies and we ban them if they talk Stalinism on an alt.
And what do you do for nazis?
Defed and ban
But they can’t ban you from entire fediverse and that is the point.
You’re lucky you’re not in the wrong instance!
The US has been an Oligarchy for quite a while now.
Amongst other things that’s why Bernie’s campaign to be the Democrat candidate was torpedoed directly by the DNC so that Hillary “I got a cool half a million to give a speech to Goldman Sach’s traders” Clinton got the nomination and then proceeded to lose to none other than old-money multi-millionaire Donald Trump.
I mean, it’s pretty obvious even before since Reagan the Hierarchy Of Power in the US has in many all things had Money as a higher power than Democratically Elected Administration - or in other words, the inverse of the order that it should be in Democracy - and that has extended to pretty much all things since.
The US (and several other so-called “Democratic” nations) hasn’t had Democracy for many years.
No one is going to lend me money with a paltry $0.65 on my bank account and the prospect of a week of going to be bed on an empty stomach for dinner as collateral, though
Plutocracy
WTF gif
We know, Bernie. Go back in your crypt.
He’s done far more than you to try and fight it. Why so hostile towards him?
STFU. It’s a joke dumbass
Jokes are supposed to be funny.
That’s hilarious!
Come on man he’s only eighty-four I’m hoping he wins the 2028 primary so he can make america socialist again.
I’d vote for it
Me too!
He’s so virile.
You go back to the white house
No you
Quick, let’s vote for Hillary Clinton!
It’s been a problem ever since the Industrial Revolution, which oligarchs supplanted the aristocracy while class conflict remained. There were attempts at changing the status quo, or overthrowing it and replacing with a different system, there’s so much discussion and debate, but actual success of the masses – if we must have inclusion of those oppressed regardless of race, creed or faith – has yet to be seen.
One thing is for certain: this time peaceful and legal options are starting to be exhausted of their energy, as the moneyed enemy isn’t going to yield easily.
I love this style of artwork on old political cartoons
I don’t think they are worth anywhere near that much, personally. Maybe in terms of dollars but certainly not to society…
Factually incorrect. All of them are worth $0 at best.
forbes just released their 40th billionaires list:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pr/2026/03/10/forbes-40th-annual-worlds-billionaires-list-elon-musk-is-worlds-richest-person-ever-recorded/but… their own link is 404. 🤔 interesting. suspicious coincidences one might say.
and while archive.org has multiple copies of every day, just since march 10th when the new one got released… their are no copiesThanks, the link works now.
$839 billion (Bernie’s post misstates at 829). The most normal and human response to reading this list is to feel physically ill.
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ still not working for me
Works fine for me on Firefox on Android.
hm, i’m not able to access it nor make copies with archive.org or archive.today
Nice little hit list. We as a society need to whittle it down.
Blue Shell the rich.
Of course it is. And is also about oligarchs giving orders to the media they control to not call them by that name.
