@leedrutman In parliaments, one votes for a party, not a person, and that process is robustly funded by the state, so yeah. In the United States, so-called representatives are reduced to commodities, and our politics are reduced to a trading floor.
@leedrutman Real democracy is almost always manifest in indigenous cultures, tho the Classical Athenians qualify as the only example of a real *aspiring* democracy to have emerged from post-indigenous Eurasia. They were nearly there before the Macedonians co-opted them.
@leedrutman Classical Athens also catalyzed the first examples of communism to emerge from post-indigenous Eurasia. Aristotle records mention of it, and the Classical Cynics were essentially wandering ascetics who preached a return to Nature.
@leedrutman I doubt the United States will shift gears, nix the Constitution and dabble with parliamentary systems on a national scale, but it shouldn't be impossible on a smaller scale; say, in a township, for example.
@leedrutman It's more likely, however, given the language, character and history of our political system, to push what exists in the US into a maximum egalitarian state: perhaps the first example of a real democracy in the post-indigenous world.
@leedrutman We would simply need to increase the number of legislators in communities to encompass all residents, which is easier today than it would have been 100 years ago due to the advent of emerging technologies, which are under-utilized by the public sector.
I have to say, #NoSocialMediaSundays are positively relaxing, but I was unnerved by how often I habitually grab this device and allow it to dictate my actions.
#NoSocialMediaSundays have nothing to do with the self-imposition of a guilt complex; rather, we're more interested in liberation here at @optimist_press.
The unconcious and compulsive impulse to engage with these devices and programs is what Classical Athenians would qualify as a form of servitude or slavery to our animal selves, the "'lizard brain," the base instincts.
And if you push me some bullshit about "getting tough on crime," I will verbally slap you upside the head so hard, you won't remember your fucking name.
A benumbing sound that plays in the background of life. It's been there always. I hid it in the floorboards, suffocated it with insulation and alcohol just to cope with the insanity of growing up in and stubbornly refusing to abandon this war zone, my childhood home.
@royalpratt When they closed the bars in our neighborhood, it destroyed the economy. I believe this happened in the late seventies and early eighties, around the time I was born.
@royalpratt That, in combination with systemic racism in a commodified housing market and disinvestment from the city, forced Brighton Park into a devastating economic quagmire that it struggles with to this day.
@royalpratt If @LoriLightfoot is making it more difficult for mom and pop liquor shops to survive, it's because she wants to replace them with Binny's, or nothing at all.