• silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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      2 hours ago

      They were once independent of the President. That’s not really allowed anymore.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    We used to have laws against this sort of thing…

    The primary goal of the law was to “let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other.”[2] Thus, the statute is often described as an attempt to deregulate the American broadcasting and telecommunications markets due to technological convergence.[3] The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been praised for incentivizing the expansion of networks and the offering of new services across the United States.[4] At the same time, it is often criticized for enabling market concentration in the media and telecommunications industries.[5][6]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

    But then modern neoliberalism showed up and put an end to that…

    Like, are you mad Sinclair Broadcasting bought up local TV stations and force them to read identical scripts?

    They couldn’t have done that until 1996, and there was a reason those regulations existed prior.

    • credo@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      It was supposed to be its own way to make money, as a counterpoint to other interests by selling juicy information. It breaks when its captured to further those interests’ agendas instead.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Not really. The wealthy classes had no issue making money under mercantilism. The issue was, no matter how much money they made. They were denied a level of power and control gate kept by monarchs. Economic liberalism did away with the divine right of kings and rule by bloodlines. Replacing it with something ultimately, arguably worse.

        As inbred and shitty as most monarchies were. Oftentimes they at least attempted to be educated and trained to be decent rulers despite generally failing. All capitalism ultimately did was simply redefine who gets to be a monarch. And do away with any pretense of being trained or educated to be a decent ruler. Now we simply promote the least qualified most mentally ill and unscrupulous people possible.

        In fact the average person stands to make a far more money under any system that doesn’t tolerate monarchs, oligarchs, or vanguards. As opposed to capitalism for Marxist leninism which does.

        • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works
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          23 minutes ago

          Economic liberalism did away with the divine right of kings and rule by bloodlines. Replacing it with something ultimately, arguably worse.

          Come on, man! The serfs/peasants/slaves had it way worse than anyone living under “economic liberalism”. There is no comparison! Not even close.

          I will agree that zero tolerance policies oligarchs (all well as senior associates, propagandists and enablers) does benefit everyone.

          • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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            3 minutes ago

            You dropped this /s

            Comparing them out of context to us has no value. The average serf today works more for comparatively less than those that lived under many monarchs. Do you think the average serf back then worked 40 hour weeks. 40+ weeks a year? This isn’t a defense of monarchies however. Just a condemnation of capitalism.

            The increase in standard of living comes from industrialization and automation. Not capitalism. Because for all the atrocities and faults of ideologies like Leninism. They achieved similar increases in standard of living. Which again, is not a defense or praise of Leninism. Just pointing out that capitalism is equally contemptible at least.

            Show me a system that doesn’t allow for oligarchs or vanguard, and we’ll talk.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I’m conflicted. I feel like I should stop stealing their content, but isn’t that what they want?

    • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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      4 hours ago

      The problem is that the Washington Post is pocket change for Bezos. To hurt him, you need to move off AWS and stop buying from Amazon