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And the working class gets the shaft yet again

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[-] Munrock@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Western Democracy is when you give your little brother the unplugged console controller so he stops asking you for a turn. And he sits there like an idiot pressing the buttons thinking he's in control.

Sometimes he starts to get suspicious, so you tell him he needs to press the buttons harder. Then you look over at which buttons he's straining himself on and follow along for a bit until he thinks he's making a difference again (but never in a part of the game that actually matters of course).

The difference is, with Western Democracy you've got a chorus of commentators sitting behind your brother telling him he's in control, applauding or criticising accordingly, telling him he's being silly when he gets suspicious, and moving hell and high water to keep him distracted when he starts following the controller cable to see where it really leads.

[-] sudojonz@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Excellent analogy!

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 1 year ago

The woman who sued to have this struck down took a PPP loan worth $48,000 from the government. She then had all but $4 forgiven, after which she proceeded to sue against student loan forgiveness which would of forgiven 20k of federal loans, and 10k of private loans.

Ghouls

[-] RedTed@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago

Small business tyrants have been looting the treasury for the last three years. You would not believe the amount of free money given to some of these ghouls. $48k is nothing compared to what I've seen.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago

The average loan size was 250,000. 5-50 million was also very common.

Massive corporations also got absurd quantities of money.

[-] absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 1 year ago

But y'know, 'blue no matter who' and all that goatshit

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[-] RedTed@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 1 year ago

This is bad of course but must remember that this debt forgiveness was a dumb half assed plan from the start. Systematic change is the only thing that will help the working class.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 1 year ago

Better then nothing. 20k can change peoples lives, forget that it’s half baked, any measure to help the proletarian is good.

[-] jkure2@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah agree, but they intentionally chose a long and winding path to get it done, one which allowed republicans to file an inevitable legal challenge. Undoubtedly this wasn't literally purely to sell out student debtors (i.e. me) for just pure malice, but instead they were thinking this is a nice middle path where we're not too radical but also standing by our commitment (a commitment that itself was a climb down from his previous commitments).

The effect, however, is the same. The best path was to immediately forgive the debt and force the court to claw it back, rather than to just nullify something that didn't truly exist yet. They chose this path knowing this was the likely outcome, but preferred it to something more radical that had a higher chance of success. I am not clear on the legal (let alone extra legal) paths available if the court is truly determined to even claw back the money, but they haven't been playing to win from the start.

Because when you have a bourgeois class of elected officials, consultants, lobbyists, and various other hangers on, they lose 100% of whatever genuine enthusiasm and connection they had to the rank and file of the party. It's no different than the SPD in 1915, only even less radical and more doomed to fail

[-] kafka_quixote@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago

They def have a legal path to doing it through the powers in the Higher Education Act of 1965. Just purposefully incompetent and chose this route knowing it'd probably fail

[-] jkure2@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agree with this as well - lots of people way smarter than the dem consultants running the white house have been saying they should use the HEA from the beginning. Especially because part of that legal path is a comments period that will take a long time. A long time that runs directly into the election, just another instance of Dems causing more political problems for themselves.

In reality though, laws are just words on paper. Standing, limits on judicial review, all this stuff only means anything if we all agree that it does. If (when) the court completely violates these previously held rules (nobody can stop them truly, see this completely fake gay discrimination case they ruled on if the student loans doesn't convince you), Biden has to either meet the challenge head on or save face while taking the L. He's already pre-empted today's ruling by saying that he would never "politicize the court" lol, so we know what his take is, and that is shared near universally among the people with pull inside the pary.

Political power springs from the ba...err from the bang of a gavel? Way less scary than growing from a gun, we hate those here

[-] kafka_quixote@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Well pretty uncontroversial that Mao was right ;)

[-] RedTed@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Agreed just saying this was the compromise, the least they could do and they can't even do it.

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[-] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 1 year ago

This was the intended result all along. Grandstanding to the fullest.

[-] Armthepoor@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 year ago

Supreme court is fascist

[-] SovereignState@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Woo-hoo! I get to keep the 5k cloud of debt I got for dropping out freshman year hanging over my head! Another victory for the free world!

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 year ago

5k? Are you forgetting to pay fealty to your Lords with interest?

[-] SovereignState@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Well yuo see I have been unemployed every time I've had to reaffirm yearly my commitment to "repaying" the loan... quotation marks because college did not actually cost that much, it's just a nonsense number they pulled out of thin air to pad their fucking fossil fuel investment portfolios but whatever.

Regardless, being unemployed when I re-up as it were allows me to get away without any interest. How kind. Unfortunately I have a job now, so we'll see how it goes.

[-] m532@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

So their "supreme court" has the highest power in yankeeland... but the people inside there, how do they get in? I've never heard about a "supreme court election". Do they just plant their children in there, monarchy style?

[-] comrade_nomad@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 year ago

President nominates people and congress has a hearing and either confirms or rejects them.

So, yea essentially except usually it isn't their kids but rather people that have written enough legal opinions that they like and can bribe

[-] signofzeta@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago

I changed banks during the pandemic. Maybe I'll just "forget" to put my bank account information back in, and see how long I can get away with "forgetting about" a $19K balance.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

The IRS would rather airstrike you then let you get away with that, they’ll make sure that Uncle Sam will garnish your wages and ruin your credit score for daring to be disobedient.

[-] lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago

This is my shocked face dot gif

[-] Xepher@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

The optimist in me really thought this was going to go through at first. Damn.

[-] mintopiasystem@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago

the supreme court are a bunch of motherfuckers and i am not surprised

[-] ZarbtheBard@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

This sucks, man.

[-] tamagotchicowboy@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Joke's on you, at my employment/wage rate I'm never paying off these loans.

[-] absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Honestly, part of me wonders if that's not the case. Can't tell me Empire doesn't want to bring back debt slavery.

[-] Redlogic@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago

I fucking hate seeing this shit being called as Biden student loan relief plan. Even though this plan as senile as him.

[-] ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

Lol this is why I didn’t go to college. Kinda sad but I was right

[-] Drstrange2love@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago
[-] vaguevoid@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

the supreme court at it again

[-] IlllIIIlllIlllI@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
173 points (98.3% liked)

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