And for God’s sake, remember The Undisputed Truth

We have to talk about Bernie Sanders, and why the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act is the worst thing we could do.

Trigger Warning: I’m about to piss everyone off.

I have always been skeptical of Bernie Sanders, and for one very simple reason: Because when he was going after Hillary Clinton for having Wall Street donors, I had my first epiphany that Big Tech was a bigger worry when it came to influence. Because everyone believed they had gathered around him organically. But by this time, Facebook had already admitted to tampering with people’s feeds to influence how they felt. It seemed to me, that regardless of whether money changed hands, that his success relied on social media meant that he would be in Big Tech’s pocket. Because if they wanted him to disappear, they could certainly make it happen.

And they could also certainly put him in front of us and make people believe he was the people’s choice. He came on like a wave. and suddenly everyone I knew was persuaded. Everyone I knew was describing themselves as a socialist–everyone I knew in the deep south, to clarify .

What’s more, I had been making precisely his arguments for years, but regarding art, and everyone hated it. I had been making the case through my street performance and generally strange lifestyle that if corporations fund the nonprofits, and corporations fund the schools, and corporations are churning out truly brain numbing drivel, that we would have to start funding the artists in our community through small donations, not based on advertising, not based on marketing, not based on social media, but just as determined by your own ears. That’s what all the street performing had been about in the years leading up to the 2016 election.

And people thought I was just being weird. But suddenly, here was this guy, who had been around forever, but nobody ever talked about him–and I REALLY MEAN THAT. I was deeply into studying politics at that time, and he was not on anyone’s radar. But suddenly everyone knew him, everyone was family, everyone was sending him money and saying, “I’m a socialist.”

And before you come at me with pitchforks, I am not saying that saying you’re a socialist is bad. I’m saying nobody said that. The people who called you socialists for wanting basic public goods were Republicans. We didn’t used to think that was outside of the scope of regular politics.

And he was here to say, as loud as possible, “Look over there at Wall Street and how bad they are!”

From tech platforms.

Which had been known for manipulating people’s feeds and emotions.

This was and is, of course, all circumstantial. But I didn’t trust him. And I still don’t. No matter how many things he says that I like.

Because, over time, we’ve seen other politicians like him. MJT, Kristen Sinema–people who come crashing in from out of nowhere. Some sincere, some who are, quite frankly, obviously Russian assets. Or somebody’s asset, anyway. People who come in wearing a costume of a candidate, but with an ulterior agenda that seems to be about destroying the integrity of America.

But the people were on his side, and are still, firmly on his side. A lot of people are looking to him to lead us out of the darkness we are currently in.

And now he’s coming out with the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. It seems in line with his vision on the surface. Hey, if we’re workers, we deserve to be paid, right? It seems like this is a push for a UBI. It seems like it’s a push for worker’s rights.

But what it is, is a deal with the fucking devil. It’s a bribe. It’s money to make you complicit. And if we accept it, we will be complicit, and a partner in making the greatest weapon of war that the world has ever known. It is an army, a surveillance state, a propaganda machine all in one. If we accept this, it will be permanently woven into our economy, we will come to rely on it, and we will be complicit when it destroys the planet and us.

We. Cannot. Accept. This.

Here, I wrote it better here:

SmutMagDotArt

@smutmag@mstdn.social

Whatever his intention, Bernie Sanders' plan to get us paid for our data amounts to a bribe, and if we accept it, we are putting our names on the greatest weapon of war the world has ever seen. A weapon of war not just with bombs, but also one of propaganda, and surveillance, which divorces us from humanity, diminishes human capabilities, and makes us reliant on the state. It's a weapon of war against the environment, against our free will, against humanity.

Remember this: We are entitled to (1

June 12, 2026, 3:34 am 3 boosts 4 favorites

SmutMagDotArt

@smutmag@mstdn.social

the tech lords' money because they have committed crimes against us–fraud, theft, coercion, exploitation, blackmail, and on and on. YES, we should each have a piece of their money–but because they are in prison, and their assets have been seized and distributed to those they have harmed, which is us.

THAT'S how we get our money. Don't be a fucking sellout.

June 12, 2026, 3:35 am 1 boosts 3 favorites

We cannot ever be America–a free democracy, who innovates, and leads, and creates the world we want to see–we cannot ever have our country again, if we make sign a deal like this with the tech lords. It is truly the clearest embodiment of signing a deal with the devil that I have ever seen.

Don’t sell out. Don’t buy in. Do NOT let them own you–there is no price worth it, and they will never come near it.

I am begging people from the bottom of my heart to think about this bill, and what it will truly mean, at a time when the economy is about to crash –and crash hard–at a time when you are desperate–if you let yourself become dependent on the building of AI to survive. Do you think that will result in a good outcome?

It. Cannot. We cannot stand behind this bill. Humanity is truly at stake.

We don’t want a piece of the action. WE. WANT. JUSTICE.