this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
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[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I think you listed several good points. I believe a government that actually cared about its populace would help to protect people from propaganda. The problem is that this would require a government that was actually just. That is not what we have in the US at least.

I always think about it simply because it helps weed out what is really going on. Listen, if go to your doctor and they purposely give you bad advice they could be on the hook for it. They have licensing boards, oaths, insurance, and legal regulation to prevent them from saying things like horse dewormer good.

Why is it when we have influencers, talking heads, and politicians who can do much much more harm than one doctor giving bad advice allowed to operate without oversight, licenses, regulations, and ignore their obligation to society?

Let's go back to simplifying this again. You would not tolerate someone in your personal life that lies and decieves you. Now think about people in authority. Would it be okay for your teacher, your coach, or your boss if they lied to you and manipulated you. They would lose their jobs if they did this and others find out.

We understand because of psychology and human nature that it is very easy to manipulate people and abuse them. That is why we hold the leaders close to us to high standards. Strangely though the more power people accumulate the less we seem to hold them to these standards when in fact we should even be stricter.

To be frank the reason we are not holding our most powerful people responsible is because they have been allowed to set the narrative. There is very little influence independent media has compared to mainstream media. If mainstream media creates an environment where it is just expected that politicians lie and are corrupt then everyone accepts it.

This is most definitely a conspiracy. Ever since propaganda became public relations we have seen those in power increasingly abuse their privileges. They have fine tuned the narrative to prevent themselves from being called out for the lies and damage they cause

They are using the best of psychology and other sciences to manipulate people. Drive their fear and hatred playing them like a marionette doll. We would never allow a partner to abuse us in this way but we allow someone who is way more powerful than a partner do this.

And make no mistakes these politicians are just like a partner because they are making intimate decisions about your personal life. They are invading our homes telling us what can and can't do reproductively. They are threatening people's livelihood. They are pitting Americans against each other for their own ends.

We need a new constitution that spells out that we will no longer be allowed to use the best of technology and science to manipulate people for selfish ends. We need rights to privacy, safety, and accountability. Until we grow up and stop allowing ourselves to be abused things will not improve.

The government must be designed to resist corruption not embrace it. Our current system is beyond broken with its winner take all two party nonsense. This binary choice is not a choice at all. You could never account for the diversity of thought and opinion with a choice between only two entities.

All of this is by design of course as the US was founded by the rich for the rich. I don't know about you, but this is unacceptable. We have a cancer destroying our society and mainstream media pretends it does not exist because they part of that cancer.

We have lost the proverbial battle so far in the 21st century, but that does not mean we can't demand change. The war for our future is not over yet. Don't let people fool you either. Change can and does happen and until we demand it we will continue down this path of lies and deception.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That seems like a boiling-the-ocean solution, comprehensively replacing the government with a new, better (and unproven) one.

What can be done that's actionable incrementally, starting right now?

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It is great you are thinking of what you can do. The first is to talk about it with others. You need to find people who are interested in making a change. While you can latch on to any number of solutions to tackle the problems we face it is best to come up with your own solutions with like minded people.

One thing people have been trying to do is implement ranked voting. Although we would still be stuck with our two-party system, ranked voting prevents the conundrum of losing your vote if you vote third party. This also prevents other parties from helping out spoiler candidates and using them to continue winning elections even though it is clear people want change.

There has been a bit of backlash against ranked voting with some representatives even passing amendments to prevent ranked voting at the state level. A common criticism of ranked voting is it is confusing for voters. The real reason ranked voting is discouraged though is it upsets the existing power dynamic and would allow more independent or third party candidates.

You can also get involved with local politics. I would highly suggest paying attention to city/county elections. You could run for office yourself or find someone you like to campaign for.

Don't be afraid to meet with your state or federal representatives either. I went down to the capitol and lobbied for gay marriage personally with my wife. We met with the news and talked with a lot of people on steps besides just the representatives. We ultimately passed this in our state before it happened on the federal level.

In my personal opinion, on the federal level, our biggest issue is privacy. It is time to write our Senate and Congress reps about this and tell everyone you know how important it is we have laws to protect us in this digital age.

Some of the other big issues that need to be tackled is unequal representation in Congress. For instance the county of LA has as much population as 40 US states but California does not get the reps they should in Congress.

We of course also need to get money completely out of politics. No one who is representing us should be allowed conflicts of interests. This means they should not be purchasing stocks or investing while they have privileged knowledge. They should not be running businesses and the revolving door between public office and private companies needs to be closed.

Money should not equal speech because if it does then those without money will not get equal representation. No more billion dollars campaigns and all political messaging should be tightly controlled. Candidates should only be able to sell their messages with their policies and should be held accountable to these policies.

I strongly feel politicians should be held to much higher standards. They should have a board, should pass tests, and should be licensed. All ethics should be codified into actual laws as we have seen relying on politicians to be honorable is foolish.

At any rate, there is a few things you could do.