The American people are not stupid, they know that #oligarchy has broken our political system. However, #oligarch owned #CorporateMedia has been very effective at distracting the people from this core problem. As you can see here, the difference between parties is not the main story, but #NYTimes can’t resist presenting the information along partisan lines.
88% of us think that our political system is broken. 59% of us think it has been broken for decades. Let’s put that in context.
1/n
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Do you know how many American presidents got 88% of the popular vote in a competitive election? No one. George Washington got all the votes cast, but he had no opponent.
Do you know who was the last president to get 59% or more of the popular vote? Nixon in 1972. A larger proportion of Americans believe that the system has been broken for decades than voted for any president in 52 years.
When such majorities believe something in a real democracy, things change.
2/n
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In our broken democracy, the #oligarchs have exploited every anti-democratic feature in our constitution by controlling #Corporate #Media and focusing on the partisan horse race, turning politics into a team sport where you root for your home team no matter what.
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@charvaka
Actually that's just a feature of tribalism, innate to human nature.
Somehow "we" have to find a way to get the best out of that feature for all of "us", so we all can create a better tomorrow even for "them", those who are "we" too but just used the wrong optic to observe some specific detail in the here and now.
@tofugolem
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@jesuisatire @charvaka
That's a bullshit excuse.
In America, since before the American Revolution, racism has been a tool used by the wealthy to manipulate white people into voting against their/our (I'm ½ white) own economic self-interest.
The tribalism excuse ignores the fact that oligarchs are deliberately using bigotry to get white people to vote against their own interests.
More white Americans need to read books about the history of racism in America. For self-defense.
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@tofugolem
We are on the same page, I agree with what you wrote. Sounds to me you didn't get my point. Tribalism is the base, racism docks into that gene.
It looks like an option to me to make people realize that the racism their are taught and that they feel is just a lever used against them.
What I do disagree is the conviction that you can make them read books, or that they will interpret them how you do.
Unless you adjust their glasses in the first place that won't change anything.
@charvaka
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@jesuisatire @charvaka
It sounds too much like letting white Americans off the hook for being ignorant about the leash around their own necks.
That leash inflicts a LOT of harm on marginalized groups.
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@tofugolem
White (privileged) America, privileged Europe, "western society", they are all the same, and yet just human beings hooked to their circumstances.
Same as marginalized, underdeveloped, developing .. are also "just human beings" bound to the same basic rules, one of them tribalism. All of them as racist, or potentially racist as the rest.
Unless we enable ourself to foster the positive aspects of tribalism (in this case) while disarming the negative once, nothing changes.
@charvaka
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