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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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I live here, in America, where people are working 2-3 jobs just for the privilege of barely existing, where they go bankrupt if they have an injury or an illness, where homelessness is criminalized and people die waiting for care in emergency rooms, and whether or not you succeed is determined by the zip code you're born into.
Hell, we just sat through a campaign where, for most of it, neither candidate had a fully functioning brain.
I think I've got a pretty good idea of what it's like not to have a democracy.
The economy is not the means of government. What you're describing is unfettered capitalism. But in the US that's being done inside a representative democracy.
Now we can argue all day that it's actually a secret oligarchy where politicians are bought by a handful of corporations, but we're still the ones choosing the politicians who then choose to be bought, so it's debatable what kind of government that is.
And why is it unfettered?
Because we don't have a democracy. The wealthy control our government and its effects.
No we're not. Go read up on how much it costs to get a meeting with a presidential candidate at the national convention, and then try and tell me we're the ones choosing the candidates.
That's called a flawed democracy, which isn't a good place to be but it's definitely still a democracy. Exhibit A: You can say all that on popular social media and not get arrested.
No it isn't.
Neither in practice nor in essence. We're not a democracy in part because of the electoral college, but we're definitely not because the candidates for most offices are selected by the wealthy and you're given a false choice between two conservatives, both of whom care only about the wealthy.
It doesn't matter what you can or can't say online, because unless you're a billionaire, you have no power in this country.