Perette Barella

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Tik Tok

29 April 2024

It's been 14 years since Citizens United v. FEC, which made corporations into people and let them pour money into elections. We all knew this was trouble, we all agree it's trouble. But nothing's been done.

The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. Several times since then, the Republicans have tried (with partial success) to break it. Meanwhile, and the corporations and courts just keep making it more miserable. Anything to improve the situation? No.

Most of us don't like our election options this year. Us liberals don't really want Biden. The sane Republicans don't want Trump, to the point of voting for Biden. Could we have an alternative? No, because the system's broken: the two parties have it sewn up, and thankfully, NoLabels failed to acquire a candidate because all the candidates had enough sense to realize it would get Trump elected. But are we doing anything to rework the elections system, like moving to ranked-choice voting, which would break this two-party lock and let us move out of the stalemate we've been in my entire lift? Nope.

The world around me has steadily gotten worse through my adult life. Medical care, harder to get. Insurance companies, more difficult to get money out of. Calling companies, made more difficult by autoattendants that waste time and create frustration. Traffic jams are worse, the environment is in ever-increasing peril, and bike and transit infrastructure are still taken as a joke in this country. Once guaranteed rights over my body are now in peril, and the forward movement on queer rights is backsliding. Employers have demanded more and paid less. When I needed help after an employer exploited me to the point of breakdown, I found it easier to do sex work because it was easier than navigating government help. All so CEOs could get richer, faster. With that money they buyout, merge and consolidate businesses to enshrine power in an ever-smaller number of hands, who were given the power of kingmakers by the aforementioned Citizens United. They use that ensure and deepen continued stagnation.

The Internet helped sex go from a shameful taboo to an accepted part of being an adult, but polticians are trying to reverse that, allegedly to "protect the children". Bullshit; the taboo never did anything but make it difficult for me to figure out who I am, and for the rest of my generation, that they didn't have good or easy access to good, accurate information about sex and reproduction. And the once-promising Internet has been overrun with ads, and most privacy lost.

But jesus christ, let the fucking Chinese have a profitable website, and holy mother of god we better quick pass some laws demanding they sell it and let our investors buy some of that action.

Oh sure, they'll say it's about Chinese spying. So if they care so much about us constituents' privacy, how the hell come they don't pass some laws to protect our privacy from Fakebook, Google, Twitturd or the rest? Could it be because those are American investors getting rich off invading our privacy?

There's important shit going on, like Israel stoneaging the Palestinians. Like wage theft committed on us workers by the rich. Like the carbon problem, and the imminent need to start solving it two decades ago. Like... well, you get the idea. But instead of any of that, our elected geriatric dipshits are on a fools' errand, wringing their hands over the Tik Tok and whether it runs over the WiFi.

I will vote for Biden in November, because Trump is an insane Fascist wanna-be. And afterward, if the MAGA types uprise, I'll pick up arms to help put 'em down if I'm needed to, even though I'll probably die in the process.

But goddammit we need a new political movement, and the first thing that needs to be done is to either have a constitution convention and fix the goddamn thing, or invent a new one, or at least pass an amendment reworking elections to make our system work well with third parties so we can get some desperately needed fresh blood and new perspectives in there to break the long-running deadlock. This can't be allowed to continue.

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