Protesting doesn’t really work in the US. And these days you’re likely to get shot or end up in an internment camp. The US is setup to get you in jail anyway so you can be slave labour. And the states are really not United. It’s a moot point, everyone likes to have someone else to blame. I mean I’ll get down voted if I say Europe and the rest of the world is also to blame for buying military equipment from the US. I’ll rephrase that; if people didn’t buy arms from the US then we maybe could do something since the military industrial complex partially runs this country.
The only form of protest that works here is anything financial related. Even then. If you’re considered “essential” then straight to jail. Look back at the railway protests; even just glance at the abhorrent work conditions.
You don’t have to read it; this is basically a summary “‘Without freight rail many US industries would literally shut down,’ Mr. Biden said before signing the bill” so get bent and go back to work.
And then there’s also: “Public employees shall not have the right to strike” and this means potential jail time and I wouldn’t be surprised of future instances where you end up in jail and are forced to do your job anyway.
A coal mine strike in the past resulted in the national guard shooting them down.
So basically everyone is fed propaganda, locally and overseas, but the reality is gloom. People are getting learned helplessness. Been trying to make a difference for almost 20 years.
The thing is, the US is so big that even once you account for the few biggest ones, all the rest of the states in the top 10 each have a population as big as something like Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, or Greece.
Those aren’t additional Frances, granted, but still pretty significant.
You’d need about 5 Frances just to cover the population, ignoring the area.
True, but that came mostly from being in a beggar’s shoes and not so much from how the EU political system is structured, though it’s not like there isn’t any overlap…
Both Portugal and Greece used to “solve” (temporarily, of course) such problem when they had their own currencies by changing the interest rates to essentially inflate away the excess debt, something that they can’t do in the Euro.
In fact, if you look at for example the history of GDP Growth in Portugal, you see a huge increase in growth after the 1974 revolution (which replaced Fascism with Democracy), then another increase when the country joined the EU and then a steep decrease down to levels barely above those during Fascism when the Euro came to be.
Those countries gave away their control over their monetary policy and thus when push came to shove the big countries fucked them up spare large banks from those countries having to suffer the consequences of lending money at stupidly low interest rates to countries whose economies and economic and fiscal policies did not justify it.
Giving up on having a Central Bank has consequences, but none of them are relevant in the context of comparison with US states, as this thread started from, because they also all use the dollar and have the same central bank.
If I’m not mistaken, in the US there are money flows at the Federal level from the stronger economies to the weaker ones.
There is no such thing in the EU beyond the “structural funds” which countries with weaker economies receive when they join but which stop after a while (and which both Portugal and Greece wasted in roads and corruption).
So those two situations are not the same, they’re only partially similar.
You mean the growth and stability pact? That puts caps on deficit and debt, and would force austerity measures, but had been repeatedly broken, notably by Germany and France in the early 2000s, with no punishments, so it’s a very week mechanism at this point.
The Greek and Portuguese bailouts were negotiated with the “Troika” of the European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. These weren’t part of EU law at all, but a consequence of the absolute failure of the stability mechanisms and a widespread fear that defaults would drag a bunch of other countries along and cause massive economic turmoil - remember that this is in the follow up to the 2008 crisis.
Let me expand on that: unanimity is required for stuff like EU foreign policy and some other sensitive areas, but many things require a qualified majority, not unanimity.
The US goes about it very differently, they wildly misrepresent the Senate, and this spills into other areas like the electoral college or judge appointments, subverting the whole thing.
What the “fixed map with less Frances” aims to show is exactly this, that the US gives small states disproportionate power over everyone, since a minority of the population can control the Senate and, through it, federal legislation and judicial appointments, let alone the presidency.
You make a valid point. I was using the picture to show the size overall. Places like NY and Cali are where the most aggressive capitalists are; these are the people taking advantage of everyone. They are the people that feed off the system.
California, Texas, New York, and Florida are basically the major population of the US. Those white and light pink areas hold as much power as the most densely populated areas. At a glance you can see that 7 states so 14/100 votes are practically… for a handful of people.
And look at it this way, where you see the dark red areas; that’s the capitalistic hubs.
Top left corner, that’s Seattle in Washington state. That’s where Valve is (Steam) whom announced 1.7 billion in sales in September. There’s plenty of people living in those areas that go against the overall welfare of the general public, by voting and by bribing. The rich fucks were really salty about the new additional tax they have to pay.
So what I’m trying to say is these people that are making 250k, 500k, multi millions, billions are going to fight against any change.
The only thing that’s left is to hurt them where it hurts most, finance. That’s why I wrote about the railway strike. Honestly, after reading what the work is like, they should have quit; but then they would likely face a gun to their head and get told to go back to work.
We’re dealing with a new era of bourgeoisie that have armed guards and bunkers and politicians in their pockets. Seems like they learned from historical events.
Those white and light pink areas hold as much power as the most densely populated areas.
Not exactly, in the Senate every state gets 2 votes. The presidential vote and house are weighted to population.
The issue is both of those based on population were capped, so the less populated states get a vote that counts more than the most populated areas. So Wyoming has 1 vote in the house for a population of 580,000 and California has 52 for 39.4 million people.
If these reps were concerned about their home state maybe this would work, but it’s all national party politics now.
Yeah there are 5 states with less people than Columbus, Ohio, the city, not the metro area. There are 24 states with less people than the Detroit metro area, which is entirely located in Michigan. These aren’t places people associate with huge numbers of people, it’s not like the NYC metro area that’s more populated than 47 states including New York and contains geographically large portions of Connecticut and New Jersey.
And yeah part of the issue is that some of the tiny states are among the originals. Vermont (49 in population, with less people than the city of Washington DC), while not in the original 13 fought in the American revolution and was the 14th state. Delaware and Rhode Island are between the Dakotas and Montana in population. And while some states could comfortably be broken up into more reasonable chunks, like California, Texas, and Ohio, others like Illinois and New York have a massive population solely because they have one massive city.
“Not exactly, in the Senate every state gets 2 votes. The presidential vote and house are weighted to population.”
I phrased that poorly but that’s roughly what I meant; it was easier to say than look at the states with the low population counts. It doesn’t matter how many candidates are in the house if a fifth can shut down any progress. It seems like often, the unpopular vote is the what we get. And no way to do anything about politicians that say one thing and do another.
“If these reps were concerned about their home state maybe this would work, but it’s all national party politics now.”
This is why all of this sucks. What we’re shown and what the world sees is political theatre. They go behind closed doors and amicably negotiate. A politician that called this out, I haven’t seen another video or anything from him in two years.
People love to shit on the US like we can actually do anything but only base it on what they see on regulated media.
This is a load of bollocks, I mean, look at the historical US protests like the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, suffrage campaigns - all of them changed policies.
What changes nothing is sitting on your ass making up reasons to stay inside.
Heh I actually almost went to Kent State cause my brother did. Kent read, Kent write, Kent State! Sorry, it’s a local joke if you lived around there. I actually walked the field when I did tour.
I’ve done my time. At this point, I’m not able bodied. So sitting on my ass and convey a message is all I can do. Not everyone is making up shit.
Part of the problem there is the signing of the bill actually prevented the strike… The point of a strike is that can’t fire everyone… And similarly, they can’t send everyone to jail…
I think that this is part of the issue.
Protesting doesn’t really work in the US. And these days you’re likely to get shot or end up in an internment camp. The US is setup to get you in jail anyway so you can be slave labour. And the states are really not United. It’s a moot point, everyone likes to have someone else to blame. I mean I’ll get down voted if I say Europe and the rest of the world is also to blame for buying military equipment from the US. I’ll rephrase that; if people didn’t buy arms from the US then we maybe could do something since the military industrial complex partially runs this country.
The only form of protest that works here is anything financial related. Even then. If you’re considered “essential” then straight to jail. Look back at the railway protests; even just glance at the abhorrent work conditions.
https://therealnews.com/railroad-workers-speak-out-after-congress-and-biden-block-rail-strike
You don’t have to read it; this is basically a summary “‘Without freight rail many US industries would literally shut down,’ Mr. Biden said before signing the bill” so get bent and go back to work.
And then there’s also: “Public employees shall not have the right to strike” and this means potential jail time and I wouldn’t be surprised of future instances where you end up in jail and are forced to do your job anyway.
A coal mine strike in the past resulted in the national guard shooting them down.
So basically everyone is fed propaganda, locally and overseas, but the reality is gloom. People are getting learned helplessness. Been trying to make a difference for almost 20 years.
Replace your map with a population map. There’s a lot of Frances there that don’t need to be there.
Place 3 or 4 Frances and you’re good. Really just shut down LA and NYC.
The thing is, the US is so big that even once you account for the few biggest ones, all the rest of the states in the top 10 each have a population as big as something like Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, or Greece.
Those aren’t additional Frances, granted, but still pretty significant.
You’d need about 5 Frances just to cover the population, ignoring the area.
Yeah but Portugal or Greece can’t prevent France from functioning properly or force federal laws unto it, can they.
More the other way round during the last sovereign debt crisis.
Ironically it’s France that’s now drowning in debt.
True, but that came mostly from being in a beggar’s shoes and not so much from how the EU political system is structured, though it’s not like there isn’t any overlap…
Nah, that came from being hogtied by the Euro.
Both Portugal and Greece used to “solve” (temporarily, of course) such problem when they had their own currencies by changing the interest rates to essentially inflate away the excess debt, something that they can’t do in the Euro.
In fact, if you look at for example the history of GDP Growth in Portugal, you see a huge increase in growth after the 1974 revolution (which replaced Fascism with Democracy), then another increase when the country joined the EU and then a steep decrease down to levels barely above those during Fascism when the Euro came to be.
Those countries gave away their control over their monetary policy and thus when push came to shove the big countries fucked them up spare large banks from those countries having to suffer the consequences of lending money at stupidly low interest rates to countries whose economies and economic and fiscal policies did not justify it.
Giving up on having a Central Bank has consequences, but none of them are relevant in the context of comparison with US states, as this thread started from, because they also all use the dollar and have the same central bank.
If I’m not mistaken, in the US there are money flows at the Federal level from the stronger economies to the weaker ones.
There is no such thing in the EU beyond the “structural funds” which countries with weaker economies receive when they join but which stop after a while (and which both Portugal and Greece wasted in roads and corruption).
So those two situations are not the same, they’re only partially similar.
EU austerity was enforced though. That’s no different from federal law
That statement is just too vague to address.
You mean the growth and stability pact? That puts caps on deficit and debt, and would force austerity measures, but had been repeatedly broken, notably by Germany and France in the early 2000s, with no punishments, so it’s a very week mechanism at this point.
The Greek and Portuguese bailouts were negotiated with the “Troika” of the European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. These weren’t part of EU law at all, but a consequence of the absolute failure of the stability mechanisms and a widespread fear that defaults would drag a bunch of other countries along and cause massive economic turmoil - remember that this is in the follow up to the 2008 crisis.
Six-Pack, Two-Pack, and the 2012 Fiscal Compact (Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A52012DC0342
Ever heard of EU veto/unanimity rules? Look what Hungary did.
That’s not forcing rules on France now is it?
Let me expand on that: unanimity is required for stuff like EU foreign policy and some other sensitive areas, but many things require a qualified majority, not unanimity.
The US goes about it very differently, they wildly misrepresent the Senate, and this spills into other areas like the electoral college or judge appointments, subverting the whole thing.
What the “fixed map with less Frances” aims to show is exactly this, that the US gives small states disproportionate power over everyone, since a minority of the population can control the Senate and, through it, federal legislation and judicial appointments, let alone the presidency.
It is.
Very insightful, thanks.
It’s the basis of the EU…
You make a valid point. I was using the picture to show the size overall. Places like NY and Cali are where the most aggressive capitalists are; these are the people taking advantage of everyone. They are the people that feed off the system.
California, Texas, New York, and Florida are basically the major population of the US. Those white and light pink areas hold as much power as the most densely populated areas. At a glance you can see that 7 states so 14/100 votes are practically… for a handful of people.
And look at it this way, where you see the dark red areas; that’s the capitalistic hubs.
Top left corner, that’s Seattle in Washington state. That’s where Valve is (Steam) whom announced 1.7 billion in sales in September. There’s plenty of people living in those areas that go against the overall welfare of the general public, by voting and by bribing. The rich fucks were really salty about the new additional tax they have to pay.
So what I’m trying to say is these people that are making 250k, 500k, multi millions, billions are going to fight against any change.
The only thing that’s left is to hurt them where it hurts most, finance. That’s why I wrote about the railway strike. Honestly, after reading what the work is like, they should have quit; but then they would likely face a gun to their head and get told to go back to work.
We’re dealing with a new era of bourgeoisie that have armed guards and bunkers and politicians in their pockets. Seems like they learned from historical events.
Not exactly, in the Senate every state gets 2 votes. The presidential vote and house are weighted to population.
The issue is both of those based on population were capped, so the less populated states get a vote that counts more than the most populated areas. So Wyoming has 1 vote in the house for a population of 580,000 and California has 52 for 39.4 million people.
If these reps were concerned about their home state maybe this would work, but it’s all national party politics now.
Yeah there are 5 states with less people than Columbus, Ohio, the city, not the metro area. There are 24 states with less people than the Detroit metro area, which is entirely located in Michigan. These aren’t places people associate with huge numbers of people, it’s not like the NYC metro area that’s more populated than 47 states including New York and contains geographically large portions of Connecticut and New Jersey.
And yeah part of the issue is that some of the tiny states are among the originals. Vermont (49 in population, with less people than the city of Washington DC), while not in the original 13 fought in the American revolution and was the 14th state. Delaware and Rhode Island are between the Dakotas and Montana in population. And while some states could comfortably be broken up into more reasonable chunks, like California, Texas, and Ohio, others like Illinois and New York have a massive population solely because they have one massive city.
“Not exactly, in the Senate every state gets 2 votes. The presidential vote and house are weighted to population.”
I phrased that poorly but that’s roughly what I meant; it was easier to say than look at the states with the low population counts. It doesn’t matter how many candidates are in the house if a fifth can shut down any progress. It seems like often, the unpopular vote is the what we get. And no way to do anything about politicians that say one thing and do another.
“If these reps were concerned about their home state maybe this would work, but it’s all national party politics now.”
This is why all of this sucks. What we’re shown and what the world sees is political theatre. They go behind closed doors and amicably negotiate. A politician that called this out, I haven’t seen another video or anything from him in two years.
People love to shit on the US like we can actually do anything but only base it on what they see on regulated media.
This is a load of bollocks, I mean, look at the historical US protests like the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, suffrage campaigns - all of them changed policies.
What changes nothing is sitting on your ass making up reasons to stay inside.
Heh I actually almost went to Kent State cause my brother did. Kent read, Kent write, Kent State! Sorry, it’s a local joke if you lived around there. I actually walked the field when I did tour.
I’ve done my time. At this point, I’m not able bodied. So sitting on my ass and convey a message is all I can do. Not everyone is making up shit.
Part of the problem there is the signing of the bill actually prevented the strike… The point of a strike is that can’t fire everyone… And similarly, they can’t send everyone to jail…
As I wrote, a strike or preferably mass quitting might just get you a kick in the ass–back to work with a gun to your head by the national guard.