mikeharreld.bsky.social
Union organizer, socialist, and hopeful future city commissioner for Lawrence, KS. Fighting for a better tomorrow with policies on ending at will employment, more public housing, housing insecurity, and fighting back against ICE.
94 posts
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Fun fact: Zionists were friends with the Nazi party. The two fascist regimes actively supported one another.
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I'm about to block you, so I encourage you to continue this dialogue with the following:
naomiklein.org/the-shock-do...
archive.org/details/Conf...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.14318...
helpfulprofessor.com/world-system...
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You're literally celebrating people making a starvation wage. 80% of lower income. 40% of middle income. Over 50% in the US, none of that captured in the IMF metrics. But it looks nice if you want to sell austerity.
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I want you to imagine looking up information on vaccines on a search engine that's dominated by anti-vaxxers. Here: www.mckinsey.com/mgi/overview...
Note: What the 'empowerment line' includes.
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Those are literally starvation wages, my dude. Over half of the people in the US do not make enough to live on and are working starvation wages. Yet according to the IMF majority of US citizens are not in poverty.
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People, on the whole, can afford less of what they need with those 'increased' wages. You're celebrating a hollow, meaningless number that is meant to hide the fact that less and less people can afford what they need for survival.
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I'm not seeing any sourcing on this. I suspect this might be someone on the right trying to stir the pot (and we all want to leap onto it because it is what is needed). Can anyone confirm/post a source on this?
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Israel is a fascist regime. It is just to oppose them. It is unjust to support them. "Both sides" is the worse kind of commentary in a situation like this.
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It'll hallucinate a bioweapon into existence, undoubtedly
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I mean, you're literally arguing it's cool that people are paid less than 2 dollars a day and paid starvation wages because you see that as a positive move. How can you hope to build better for yourself without understanding the state of things?
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It isn't. Again, you're speaking from a position of ignorance fed by propaganda. Go read Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 years and get back to me.
archive.org/details/Debt...
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It isn't inflation adjusted. It's a static number irrespective of local costs. They intentionally switched to it because as a way to show 'poverty' decreasing even as the number of people who could afford/access basic necessities decreased globally.
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Usually I can do that in short order, not so much in this case. I can point to you texts to broaden your understanding on the topic: Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Shock Doctrine, etc. But sadly most sourcing pulls directly from the IMF and the IMF bakes the numbers.
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If you spent the time you'd eventually hit this topic as it's central to understanding our present moment. You can't understand the world, as it exists, without understanding this.
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Like we are ALL busy. Heck, it doesn't matter if you take 10 minutes a day to read through a text. It'll take forever, but this is how I've read through some really heavy texts when time has been at a premium. It's an investment in yourself, and I'd argue one that should be critical for everyone.
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Not to be rude here, but you really need to maybe be on social media less and spend more time educating yourself. Like you're commenting on topics you don't fully understand and lack even a basic awareness of. EG, you don't have an opinion of the World Bank/IMF but are pulling from their propaganda
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Like the IMF would say you're not impoverished if you make more than 2 dollars a day, but if you live in the US 10 dollars an hour isn't enough to live on.
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Around the late 80s they changed how they did those measurements because the numbers showed those countries were becoming poor-er and poverty was increasing. When you actually look at things other than wages (eg, access to necessities) poverty is going up, not down
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATKB... here's a good overview of one of the methods. Know that in the case where a country cannot be controlled via the IMF or world bank other interventions (such as assassination will be utilized).
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Go look at anywhere described as third world, and there's a good solid chunk of the answer.
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I'm also going to say if you aren't willing to educate yourself on a topic you're SO willing to comment on that we really shouldn't take you seriously.
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The numbers vary study by study, 1 dollar spent means 2 dollars saved was the last study I read on the subject, but this is a proven fact.
endhomelessness.org/resources/re...
borgenproject.org/housing-home...
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Name recognition. Mostly boomers voting for them too.
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Every dollar spent on things the community needs usually saves something like 2 dollars. It has a huge ROI. And having social workers, who can't put you in a jail cell or kill you, but will help you de-escalate and connect you to what you need are a proven better solution. Maybe read more?
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Gotta kiss the ring.
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Why AREN'T you alarmed by the fascist group that's undermining your rights?
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Of course I'm a lot more alarmed by a literal fascist group [AIPAC] with a history of fighting against MY rights. Israel and all of it's little propaganda/PAC groups are on par with the KKK or neo-Nazis. Trying to whatabout your way on this is a hard self-own.
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Do you understand the historical context of colonialism?
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I want to point out: You know what I mean but you'd rather get a pendantry rather than challenge your own ideology. Maybe spend less time arguing with people online?
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Yeah, you need to include sourcing with stats. Based on billions of dollars. You have to understand that neo-colonization has foreign countries selling labor/resources at fractions of what they should cost. So, no, that stat doesn't actually give you a real understanding of the actual economy
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Because the US re-organized the global economy in such a way as to primary itself as a consumption engine with Europe as a trading partner, but most of what you see is pretty much designs that were put in play after WW II and the 90s. Even the political instability.
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If you look at history and recent years, the fundamental function of US government are things like suppressing native populations (now mostly foreign countries where we extract labor and resources at a fraction of the cost), and suppressing labor. Fascism is having us give up the soft power part
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Yeah, that's bs. Both Europe and Canada also are dependent on the same set of circumstances. I'm glad to see you can pull statistics out of your ass though. Much more important than critical thinking.
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I'm definitely convinced we need to develop special divisions in every municipality to begin targeting ICE agents for such brazen disregard for the law. Once they start catching silver bracelets, they will stop.
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Those are ancillary to the primary function. The service distribution is because otherwise people would've revolted and pushed to alternative structures. And that 'protection' is non-existent. Added bonus is that community leadership is far more protective of a community over policing.
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naomiklein.org/the-shock-do... this is a good gloss over the issue, but you can go read the actual book for a proper intro.
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Look, you're in the heart of empire. In order for those third world sweat shops to exist, you have to have right wing death squads going through and exterminating ANYONE who would dare to resist US empire. People have to get disappeared into the night with no due process, tortured, and executed.
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Look at least go read this overview of Graeber. Guy was far from perfect, but this will at least prime your pump without giving you a 400 page reading assignment.
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Hell, the axial age empires, which were unstable economies ran on war and slavery *look good in comparison* to modern practices. That's the sheer level of brutality necessary to keep the 'spice flowing.'
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A lot of what we have 'now' that is good is built on technological advancement, that coincided with but not necessarily was necessitated by practices of brutal exploitation, and the world of today is primarily held aloof by continuing practices of exploitation that makes the feudal period look good