I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have controversial opinions.
For example, I think “Con Air” is the greatest movie ever made.
(Note: I did not say film, I said movie. There’s a difference.)
I believe this so much so, that I have multiple copies of Con Air.
I got it on DVD.
I got it on my MacBook Pro.
I got it on my PlayStation 4.
Or … I had it on my PlayStation 4.
That is, until Sony decided that, regardless of the fact that I purchased a film with my own money, they have the right to delete that movie because they’re no longer offering movies for sale.
This happened a while ago, but it’s relevant for something that’s in the news. So I hope you’re paying attention.
Sony was able to do this because, whenever you pay for something and download it, you don’t actually own it.
(Those of you who follow our sister website, Stupid Sexy Privacy, already know this.)
But it’s no less true.
You don’t own the thing you paid for.
You’re renting it.
Same goes for your music.
Same goes for all your games.
And if you think that sucks, just wait.
It’s going to get worse.
Because pretty soon, this is how everything is going to be. And it sucks. Just ask our farmer friends:
I’m telling you this for two reasons:
First: Sony will soon no longer offer physical copies of their PlayStation games. That, in effect, means you cannot own any game that you buy for the PlayStation. You’re going to instead pay $60 or so to rent that game, and at any time, for any reason, Sony can end your rental.
(If you have an Apple TV, for example, and you purchase a movie through the Apple store, the same applies. You don’t own that movie. You’re renting it from Apple.)
The oligarchs (Bezos, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Musk, Page, Brin, Thiel, and others) are pushing us into a world where you and I don’t own anything.
We just rent it. In the Middle Ages, they called that serfdom. Today SONY calls it, “adapting to consumer trends.”
Financially — which is the only thing that gets most Americans to care about anything — this means you’re perpetually on the hook every month with yet another bill.
Imagine one for using your washing machine.
Now your dryer.
And don’t forget the dishwasher.
Or your car.
Sucks, right?
That’s capitalism when you take the guardrails away. And we need to put those guardrails back. Unfortunately, we have all the wrong people for the job, and the rest of us cannot afford — or have the time — to run ourselves.
The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
And while most Sony games are purchased digitally, it’s a lie for Sony to tell people that people are buying less and less physical media.
The opposite is true. Especially with the younger generations.
So, who’s supposed to help you fix this?
I don’t know if you noticed, but they don’t have any solutions. Just people to blame and long lists of others they want to get rid of.
I don’t see a whole lot of people in red hats with detailed plans about how they’re going to fill all those hospital employee vacancies, for example, when they start arbitrarily deporting our Haitian brothers and sisters.
Do you?
You see a lot of that locally too. I see a whole lot of noise coming from Dorey “I Spent Almost a Half-Million Dollars on Racist TV Ads” Houle telling you how much she dislikes Monroe’s Town Supervisor, but I don’t see her offering a solution to a budget crisis she actually created when she was on the board.
But don’t worry, everyone — Dorey here is going to be the leader of the resistance. And she’s going to bring along her cool friends: dangerous anti-vaxxer Tom Lapolla, local Nazi Jay Westerveld, and Mike Egan, who helped create America’s first official theocracy with the Town of Palm Tree. (For more on that, see the documentary film, “City of Joel.”)
Don’t get us started on our Orange County legislator, Peter Tuohy either.
He was, allegedly, last seen drunk at a veterans breakfast. We can’t confirm he was drunk — we have reached out to Mr. Tuohy for comment — but “drunk at a veterans breakfast” is toward the top of the list of things we could imagine Peter Tuohy doing instead of representing his constitutents.
That’s a look at the local and national Republicans.
Now let’s look at the Democrats, which brings us to the flyer at the top of this post.
(No. Those aren’t my teeth marks. Finley is waging a one-cat war on paper. Personally, I think he should have started with Skoufis’s face.)
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Pretty much everyone in Orange County got this flyer. And on the surface, it looks good, right?
But I have to ask you: In a time of crisis, especially a financial one, what do you think is more relevant to the people of Orange County: The IDA thing few people understand, and fewer care about. Or this:
The above video details an investigation by the AG that found collusion among corporations was the reason egg prices skyrocketed.
Where was Skoufis on legislation to fix this? State Senators have a lot of power to make law, including the kind that punishes corporate monopolies from jacking up prices simply to gouge consumers.
Where was Skoufis on the bill(s) introduced this session that would empower the AG to sue and breakup the meat manufacturers and grocery store monopolies to drive down food prices?
Where was Skoufis on converting O&R from a private company to a public utility that would drive down your energy bills?
Did Skoufis help Hochul water down the Data Center Moratorium from the proposed three years to the more Big Tech friendly one year?
Yes? No? Maybe? But sure. Let’s talk about this IDA thing. You know why?
Because Skoufis doesn’t want to talk about the hard stuff. Despite the fact that you and I are living through a national emergency, and our federal leadership is lacking.
The difference between the Fascists & Weirdos and the Democratic Party is that you know where the Fascists & Weirdos stand.
I, for the life of me, can not tell you one thing the Democrats want as a party aside from, “Let’s get rid of Trump.”
Ok. Great. Sure. Then what?
Because you don’t get the national emergency simply because of Trump. You get the national emergency because you’ve allowed the oligarchs to hijack our election system and government. It’s not just him. He’s just the ugly face of it.
The national Democrats don’t have an answer. Neither do the ones in New York.
That’s because, while they don’t want Trump, they do not want to offer you solutions to the problems that gave you Trump in the first place.
Like cracking down on anti-consumer policies like what SONY is doing right now. And like the egg companies were just caught doing.
That’s because the people who fund the Fascists & Weirdos fund the New York and National Democrats too.
So instead of providing solutions, we’re getting band-aids. Ones the State and national Democrats point to for proof that they’re working “real hard” on your behalf.
Of course we have other issues that must be addressed, but curbing the IDA tax drain with a state monitor is a major priority. This is a fight we can win right now.