- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
Summary
In his farewell speech, President Joe Biden warned of a growing “oligarchy” in the U.S., where extreme wealth and power threaten democracy.
Comparing modern elites to 19th-century robber barons, he called for reforms to hold the wealthy accountable, as done in the past.
Biden also criticized a “tech-industrial complex” concentrating power and spreading disinformation, weakening democracy.
His remarks sparked a surge in Google searches for “oligarchy.”
The speech comes amid rising concerns about policies favoring billionaires, like Trump’s tax cuts and potential cuts to social safety programs.
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it’s been made abundantly clear that a lot of americans have no fucking idea what anyone is talking about
I genuinely can’t believe that there is any overlap at all with the maybe 500 people who actually listened to his speech or even read an article summarizing it and those who don’t know what the meaning of “oligarchy” is.
How does anyone get engaged enough in the political process to watch a speech from Biden and not recall Bernie Sanders saying this every day of his life for the last 30 years?
I follow these things closely on my own time, as I assume is common for nearly everyone on lemmy.
But I saw coverage of Biden’s farewell address randomly at the gym. And also at a local restaurant. The media now is putting that word “oligarchy” in front of people’s eyes, as a summary of his speech. I would guess most people googling it are checking if “the oligarchy” is a country in the middle east or something
Lol, that’s fair. Maybe I should really feel surprised that people paid attention enough to Google it.
“Who the fuck is Ollie Garky?”
“Klepto crazy? Never heard of the guy, must be Greek or something”
It’s scary how much old tv media sways public conversation…and how incompetent they are
I often get confused between oligarchy, kleptocracy and plutocracy, that’s why I would look it up. I do understand how we can all be a little ignorant. We should do better.
Well, to be fair, a kleptocracy is a poverty mindset applied to wannabe plutarchs or oligarchs. Oligarchy is the DEI version of Plutocracy because it’s not just wealth based. Edit:/s
There is nothing diverse, equitable or inclusive about oligarchs, quite the opposite, but I see your point.
Sarcasm tag added
Americans have been so fat and happy that they’re literally sick. They need a few more LA fires and pandemics to wake up from the intellectual coma they’re in.
Sadly, they bought all the lies about Covid and now believe they are safe from it and that it magically disappeared. They believe the CDC’s “comprehensive guidelines” are enough to keep us all “safe”, when the actual guidelines are just base ideas, not anything of real value. They actually recommend people sneeze and cough into their elbows as if that’s going to stop an airborne virus. Yet they believe it all.
Defunding schools doing it’s job
Not the brightest bunch
Anyone who had any other understanding has failed to communicate with the American public.
communication requires participation by both the sender and the receiver in order to take place. are you saying that if everything you tell someone is dismissed as “fake news” and ignored, then it’s your fault that nothing was communicated?
participation by both the sender and the receiver in order to take place. are you saying that if everything you tell someone is dismissed as “fake news” and ignored, then it’s your fa
How in the hell did you get that as a take away from what I said?
has failed to communicate with the American public.
what did you mean by that, if not exactly what you said?
Blocking a troll. got one less problem without ya…
Blocking a troll. got one less problem without ya…
lol if i was blocked i wouldn’t see that…
but yea. bye.
I think user rumba meant in regards to the OP post…
“it’s been made abundantly clear that a lot of americans have no fucking idea what anyone is talking about”
…that anybody who thought otherwise about the american public has never really talked to its representants.
Whereas I think you understood rumbas’ comment as like he wrote about the people who knew better about the threat of the coming administration failed to communicate it to the average ignorant us citizen. With you replying that those trying to enlighten didn’t have a chance to succeed with that anyway.
Now shake hands and unblock. You’re on the same side.
What else is new?
Ye’s best start believin’ in oligarchies.
Yer in one!
What we call laws are more like guidelines than actual rules we abide by…
Becoming…? The country founded on the principle that only landowners and capitalists should be represented democratically is becoming an oligarchy?
Yes, because the early USA did not resemble an modern oligarchy but rather a plutocracy which despite its problems still has greater room for a merit based system than a modern oligarchy provides. We are intentionally concentrating a tremendous amount of wealth in the hands of very few people.
Plutocracy = rule by the wealthy.
Oligarchy = rule by the few.
The wealthy are the few. And with increasing wealth disparity, they are comparatively even fewer than ever before.
Not really any meaningful difference.
Maybe if we keep going with the concentration of wealth we can boil it all down to just one guy and then drown that guy in the bathtub like Republicans wanted to do with the federal government.
Ps: As far as your oligarchy vs plutocracy thing goes, we’re just both.
I mean give capitalism long enough we might be left with just one guy standing. I do mean guy. An immortal white shriveled dude, alone in a utopia of bots serving him.
And I just meant this whole “ah we’re not an oligarchy! We’re a plutocracy” thing is just dumb. What is even the difference in these peoples heads? It’s practically the same thing. And it IS the same thing under capitalism. The few who rule are the wealthy.
That’s the whole point of the system… capitalISM? The owners of CAPITAL rule?
I mean give capitalism long enough we might be left with just one guy standing. I do mean guy. An immortal white shriveled dude, alone in a utopia of bots serving him.
Nah, they’re not immortal and all tech has problems. I get this is like the wet dream of the tech bros to be self-sufficient masters of robot armies, and I hate to kink shame, but it won’t ever happen.
The one directly inspired by Rome, an oligarchy with strict class systems and slavery?
Some Americans don’t even know how to spell it right, so I’m not sure they’ll even be able to look it up:
Bruh, he missed the perfect opportunity to call Obama a communist.
Wow, he couldn’t think of a single c based accusation to level at the Obama presidency?
Wasn’t Beck also one of the people who got super obsessed with Obama smoking crack or something in college?
It was just pot
I guess he couldn’t think of a buzzword for “C” so he just left it out.Never mind, someone already said thisCommunist + Yhadist. Yeah, they had easy remarks and still failed.
Sad.
Two things are true:
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He did a lot and still should have done more - still ends up as probably the most progressive president to hold the office. More of a criticism of this country.
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All of you claiming “too little too late” don’t think on the scale of history. Those things have never been said by that leader’s voice, In that leader’s office, broadcast on primetime TV to everyone, everywhere.
This is how progress works. Again, would have been better for him to say it from the start, but would have been fuel for the right (who doesn’t even really need credible fuel for the people they talk to) even more obstructionist, bad faith ghouls.
All the above considered, we were fucked as soon as election result came in. Democracy is over, if there was s cashed they wouldn’t try to literally draw and quarter Biden on the national mall in the next four years, this likely solidified it. Don’t think him saying those words are said without personal risk. I think he failed to live up to the full mandate of his election, but this is an old mmm an whip knows he’s about to die saying fuck it and pulling the pin on the grenade knowing he won’t outrun the blast. In his reality, that’s what this decision was.
-
Jesus fucking Christ. 🤦♂️
All these dumbfucks will be Googling “What is a Great Depression?” in about a year too.
May Bird Flu thin the herd.
Don’t worry. We’ll be defunding public education soon.
Soon? We have been!
Ugh, one of my right wing Farcebook “friends” recently made a simpleton comment about paying back student loans, and I couldn’t resist saying “why stop at college? Defund public schools, if little Timmy can’t afford it, send him to the mines” and of course he agreed, the irony was completely lost on him. No, his kids do not go to private school.
Eh, at least they’re trying to learn more about the subject. I think the real concern is people that don’t know what’s going on and don’t care to find out.
COVID killed so many of the believers of bullshit. I don’t think it helped
What is oligarchy?
Something you live in.
Maybe you should have fucking Googled it sooner.
To be fair, high school government/civics classes are probably so gutted that I’m happy when people understand the three branches of government.
I still think those classes are a myth, I never heard of anyone taking a civics class when I was in school 20 years ago.
2005 grad here. I definitely had a civics class.
2002 here, same, in 8th grade.
People think that voting either doesn’t matter, or that it’s like choosing to be a fan of a certain football team. They won’t realize their mistake when the rug gets pulled out from underneath them…but they might when they hit the back of their head on the polished concrete floor.
Unfortunately, we (the world) are paying for their medical bill. Climate change policy will regress. Trade and economic policy, too. Peace will be undermined. And regional wars will flare up and get worse as people fight for water and other resources.
Huh, this actually seems legit. Compared to my ultra-scientific Google trends comparo it was half as popular of a search as Taylor Swift at its peak, which seems pretty big.
Oh damn, just comparing it to ‘oligarchy’ and it’s much bigger.
Just to add, this proves:
- that Americans in general aren’t following along on their own
- that Biden could have influenced the discourse and been a force for good IF HE HAD BEEN COMMUNICATING LIKE THIS ALL ALONG. Unfortuntately they decided to ‘show not tell’ and let Trumpism fill the communication void with their lying bullshit for four years. Joe’s biggest failure and one we shouldn’t forgive him for.
Americans in general aren’t following along on their own
This was also shown on election day when people googled “did Joe Biden drop out”. Many voters had no idea Kamala Harris was even running for president.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/search-interest-did-joe-biden-211913111.html
I get a lot of folks are busy, working two jobs, dealing with childcare and healthcare and whatnot, but how deep do you have to bury your head in the sand to be so unaware or disconnected from an American Presidential election? It’s unfathomable to me.
Holy F*CK. I live in another continent altogether, and couldn’t filter out the American elections spam even if tried (and oh did I try…)
They’re broke and desperate. Also, racist and sexist.
His handlers didn’t want him appearing in public. But that’s where the bully pulpit is,
Biden became a good president… in his last month in office.
Or to be blunt: He’s being performative now when it doesn’t matter
Biden was a good president. And then he enabled Israel to go on a spree of war crimes, and also allowed Trump to, uh, live.
The Supreme Court: Nothing the President does is illegal
Everyone: Even ordering Seal Team Six to Mar-A-Lago
Biden: Cool, goes for ice cream and does nothing with this information
I don’t count any of them as “good president” with a 800B annual military budget. Or the rest of the totalitarian federal budget they rubber stamp without fail. There’s a lot of shit baked into the federal government that they never, ever veto in the budget, dark as all fucking hell, that Americans just ignore.
I would say, the genocide revealed who he already was, in a very clear way, but the signs and the evil deeds were already there.
“Look at all those slave masters posing on your dollars.”
You might as well search for kakistocracy as well.
kakistocracy /kăk″ĭ-stŏk′rə-sē, kä″kĭ-/ noun
- Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
- Government by the worst men.
- Government under the control of a nation’s worst or least-qualified citizens.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
While we’re at it, lets throw in gerontocracy
I read Ken Klippenstein and he was heralding 2024 as the year of the gerontocracy starting to fail and be left behind and I’m like dude, we just elected a fucking 78 year old Hitler wannabe as president. The gerontocracy only gets worse.
Yeah, one of the major reasons the Soviet leadership failed too
Ah, so that’s where “Heritage Foundation” comes from.
Top kek, I mean kak.
Fun fact: the Greek word kakistos (meaning “worst”), from which the first part of kakistocracy derives, comes from the Proto-Indo European root *kakka- which means “to defecate.” Source: Etymonline
In other words, kakistocracy can be considered: Being governed by shit.
ETA another related fact.: the word cacophony (meaning “harsh or unpleasant discordance of sound”) also shares this root. It came to English via Latin, so the spelling is different, but the origin remains the same. Which is to say, a “cacophony” is a shitty sound.
kakistocracy - see South Africa. Lol
So, Joe, Buddy, what exactly did you do in your four years to actually curb the power of the oligarchy?
So, Joe, Buddy, what exactly did you do in your
four yearshalf century to actually curb the power of the oligarchy?The answer is that he’s been actively working for the oligarchy-beholden establishment since before most of us were even born.
This is like the retiring CEO of Shell warning that extracting and burning fossil fuels might have deleterious effects on the global climate.
Same as politicians releasing biographies spilling the beans after they retire from ‘public service’, it’s never anyone’s responsibility or fault they are all taking graft, insider trading, selling natural reserves to foreign drilling companies, selling weapons to genocidal pricks, etc.
He won’t be alive long enough to witness the disaster, so why should he care?
-The baby boomers advocates.
I mean obviously he knows how he’s part of evil, now that he’s at the end of his career or life I guess the personal benefits don’t outweigh the guilt anymore.
Bernie’s been saying this for a long time. I’m glad Biden understands that it’s true and actually said it out loud to people. If someone asked me if Biden would say it some point, I would have said no fucking way.
It’s not the worst thing that people are trying to educate themselves even if it’s too late.
Remember when a Bernie campaigner called Bloomberg an oligarch in 2020 and all the mainstream Dems clutched their pearls so hard?
Pepperidge Farm remembers
If only he and his party was in power for some years and could have done something about it…
I like blaming Biden and all but let’s be real we are in this mess because a bunch of the people that occupy the underclass with us are actively fighting against us and for the rich ass rulers.
And the reason to blame for that is that Democrats have shown they don’t really care about working class people. So these people end up falling for the propaganda of the right since there’s no real counter to it, especially with the Democrats capitulating on issues like immigration during this election. We need an actual progressive or labor party to bring these people away from the right. But the Democrats continue to refuse to become that party and without better voting systems a third party will only really work on the local level.
Of course Democrats care about working class people. The party is just currently run by a bunch of overly educated elites that don’t have an interest in listening to the workers. Because when they do listen they hear complaints that are all over the place. The Dems moved to the right a long while ago, and around the globe liberal parties are all facing major setbacks, and our liberal party here in America is farther right than most of our democratic peers. My point is that neither of our political parties will ever do what you are asking for without being forced to action by the people.
Except our electorate is so broken that 30+% of them voted for the billionaire party and are waiting patiently with their hands cupped for that sweet trickle down. Except they are more than likely about to get austerity before they get dental coverage. I really don’t know how to get through to some of these people, they either don’t understand a ton or have fundamentally different values. Values that are in opposition to the basics of a liberal democratic system. Part of me wants to shake every one of the taxes are theft post tea party MAGA clowns and take them on a tour of where the real theft is… like say any of the multiple private space companies that launch rich assholes into orbit and sadly bring them back.
A big part of the problem is the underclass republican supporters are just little authoritarian tyrants themselves. Given the chance they are all too ready to pull the ladder up behind them.
The DNC is complicit and has been for years… But betraying Bernie was the inciting incident for the US’s most recent foray into authoritarianism.
we coulda had a bad bitch 😭
Yeah, just needed cooperation from some Republicans to make that happen through the house and senate.
Poor weak dems can never do anything, their hands are always tied! And they will always be tied because the corporate overlords don’t want effective leftwing politicians so we only get the feckless ones
This is a point I think more people really have to consider. How come the Republicans will use every ounce of power they have to get things done but Democrats will give up at the first sign of a challenge. I think it’s because the Republicans actually have leadership that actually wants to do their insane policies with their donors supporting them. While Democrats have leadership that only takes on leftist points begrudgingly to try and win their votes and donors that don’t want those things to happen. So a rotating villain always pops up ready to block all progress and even if they lose reelection cause of it they still have their nice cushy lobbying job waiting for them on the way out.
I’d like to take a moment to remind you that while I wholeheartedly disagree with the entirely of your statement, and pretty much your entire ideology-
you’re allowed to share it here.
Seriously. Take note of this, because if you check the modlogs of the .ml mods and admins, people actually get banned for “anticommunism” and just simply disagreeing with the hive.
And no, this isn’t intended to be an “us vs them” thing. It’s simply pointing out something that I believe should be considered.
Also, while these differences may be cause for anger in some people, I’m actually glad that you have the ability to share your opinions here.
Lemmy shouldn’t be walled gardens. And we should be able to share our opinions-
regardless of how stupid they are.
You have no response so you complain about mods. Lots of good posts get removed by .world mods you don’t see me bringing that up when I’m losing an argument
LMAO! Dude… What response could there be? To me, it seems as if you’re just rattling off from a list of generic far left rhetoric. In my opinion, it’s mostly just meaningless nonsense. My apologies, but… There is little content there that I felt was worthy of a response.
I’ll digress though:
I suppose I could have responded with the fact that you had nothing worth responding to, but instead I chose to point out something I thought would be more helpful:
The fact that here, you’re allowed to say dumb shit. As long as you remain within the rules. Elsewhere, you’re not. And unlike you, I have the modlogs to back up what I’m saying. Go ahead and compare.
.ml admins override your mods all the time. Like ALL the time. Nearly all the actions in the form of removals and bans are handed out by just two people. There’s a shit-load of irony in that, it that’s for another time.
Again, checking the modlogs, you can see that world admins step in rarely to only moderate troll instance bans and spambot removal. Mostly, the mods handle the rest. Go on, look it up… On the surface, .ml mods seem to have very little say in anything. Whereas .world seems to allow moderators to work independently with little interference.
Is .world perfect? Oh hell no! FAAAAAAR from it. But my intent was not to rub this observation against perfection. It was to make a simple distinction.
And I believe I’ve done just that. Thanks for allowing me the platform to express this point. I wouldn’t have been able to say this on .ml.
-Oh, and for the record… I wasn’t losing an argument. We haven’t ever spoken prior to now.
Love Carlin. Hate this quote.
- “Half of them are smarter than that” is just as true but doesn’t have the same zing.
- The zing is that the regurgitation makes everyone feel as though they are on the right side of the distribution and thus superior.
Truth is, we are all closer to chimps than Einstein. And Einstein still left some lingering questions for us to solve.
That’s the distribution. Not “Everyone is stupid except me and you, dear reader.”
everyone feel as though they are on the right side of the distribution and thus superior.
Yes, I certainly am.
Until it comes to fixing something with my hands. Run a new cable through the wall? How the hell do I do that? You can just… make a new wall? Help, my car no go.
Ya, everyone has their “until” moments.
Getting bugged that that’s the median and not the average/mean
Average can also refer to median. It’s a better measure of central tendency than mean in this case.
True. However both should sit on the same spot on top of the bell curve for IQ distribution. Also the majority of people is not aware of the difference between the two. You’d have to explain to more than half of your audience what a median is (essentially killing the joke this way).
He’s just as complacent in the oligarchical society we currently have as anyone.
Hey now - he was perfectly fine with the plutocracy that has ruled for hundreds of years. It’s Republican legislation that led to this – think Dodd-Frank.
Democrat leadership is happy to skim some off the top. Republicans will strip it to the bone.
I was going to disagree, but I realized you said “complacent” and not “guilty”. Yeah. He was certainly complacent as far as I know.
