Rachel Maddow warned viewers on Monday that President Donald Trump plans to interfere with midterm election results, following the Supreme Court’s recent 7-2 ruling against his executive order instructing the US Postal Service (USPS) to block states from distributing and collecting mail-in ballots.
Trump’s order, which he signed last March, would’ve directed the USPS to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots to anyone whose information hadn’t been properly submitted to a new state citizenship list maintained by the federal government.
“Trump is counting on confusion, uncertainty, and a lack of confidence in the mail-in voting system to suppress voter turnout,” she said.
I get the idea, but the only thing that most can really do is refuse to pay bills and engage. Then you get thrown into the machine within 2 months. And the bills you don’t pay don’t directly affect the government.
IF one could refuse to pay taxes, that’d be something better. But, most have taxes automatically pulled from their pay before they even get it, and getting an employer to not pay that taxes on to the government is extremely difficult if not impossible in the system.
The system is working as intended. And it sucks
Withholding paying for things and refusing to work could have an indirect effect. For one, it would foil the capital class who needs a constant stream of money, or else they would start pressuring the government to do something, out of fear of losing wealth and power.
If a huge amount of people are refusing to pay their rent or mortgages, there’s no way they can evict that many people, and we can also claim squatters rights.
If people completely boycotted all non-essential consumer goods, that would also be a kick in the nuts.
It’s neat to think about how much we comply with all of this shit, because we’re programmed to fear the consequences. The illusion completely falls apart when people finally refuse to comply en masse. It’s all a paper tiger.
Agreed, to a point. If society could collectively decide to withhold rent for example… That society likely wouldn’t have high enough rents that withholding would matter.
The system is how it is because of how humans are too. (Some worse than others) We can push against it, try and make things better. And sometimes in history we’ve succeeded. Other times the system just grinds on.
We really need more community and collective action. But the digital age has (intended or not) made it possible for nearly everyone to be more isolated, and that reduces the immediate community and possibility of effective collective action.
Oh, the screens and social media algorithms that push ad traffic and addict us are totally by design. Social alienation, degradation of the human mental state and distraction to benefit tech billionaires are the features, not the side effects.