Justin Dues Justin Dues

Serfdom, Slavery, Subscriptions: Are we more than labor and attention?

We have traveled from lords and masters to contracts and code. Feudalism denied mobility; slavery denied humanity; the platform age risks denying agency—the practical freedom to make plans and hold power to account. Automation and AI can either free us from drudgery or free capital from paying for labor. Subscriptions can either smooth access or sentence families to perpetual rent.

History’s lesson is not that progress is inevitable. It’s that progress is designed—through rules that balance innovation with equity, and through institutions that insist prosperity be shared. The future of work should not be a museum of old coercions dressed in new interfaces. It can be a commons of capability, where technology lifts human dignity rather than pricing it.

We still get to choose.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

A New Call to Serve: America’s Climate & Community Corps

America’s next great chapter can be written with hammers, seedlings, fiber-optic cable, and open hearts. Picture a national service program that puts hundreds of thousands of people to work strengthening our communities against climate shocks, rebuilding after disasters, expanding affordable housing, and reducing homelessness—while forging the kind of cross-country camaraderie veterans know well. Think of it as a way to serve your nation without joining the military—and to leave with GI Bill–style benefits for your next stage of life.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Shame Before Reform: A Concrete Plan to De-Corrupt Congress and Rebuild a Government for the People

“We the People” Is Not a Slogan—It’s a Standard

A Congress that can day-trade defense stocks, hide who bought their last fundraiser, carve their own voters, and float seamlessly into seven-figure lobbying gigs does not represent We the People. It represents the house account.

Shame has to come first. Then law. Then enforcement that actually hurts.

Ban the trades. Wear the donors. Shut the revolving door. Pay for performance. Lock in term limits. Outlaw partisan gerrymandering. And give the public an independent prosecutor who doesn’t ask permission to knock.

That’s how you end the racket—so the republic can finally get back to work.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Privatize the BOOM, Socialize the BU$T: How Wall Street’s Risks Keep Getting Dumped on Main Street

The Racket in Four Acts: Monopoly, Corruption, Collapse, Repeat

America keeps living through the same economic scam on loop. It goes like this:

  1. Industries consolidate. A few giants choke out competition. Profits surge.

  2. The giants rig the rules. Lobbyists flood Washington. Risk piles up in the dark.

  3. The bubble pops. Workers lose jobs, savings, homes. The public pays the cleanup bill.

  4. Congress steps in with reforms to “make sure this never happens again.”

  5. Time passes. Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Whatever quietly pressure, sue, and lobby until those rules are weakened, gutted, or repealed.

  6. Go back to step 1.

This isn’t an accident. It’s a cycle. And it’s older than any of us.

Let’s walk it.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

America’s Military = Gangsters for Capitalism

The Founders warned about the danger of a standing army that becomes an engine of its own power. We built that engine anyway. We wrapped it in the flag. We called any oversight “unpatriotic.” And we now spend nearly a trillion dollars a year on a war machine that can’t pass an audit and routinely enriches a handful of corporations while young Americans come home in boxes

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Path to $30 by 2030: A Plan that Lifts Wages Without Crushing Small Business

America can afford a living minimum wage. What’s been missing is a plan that raises pay without crushing small and mid-size businesses in the transition. Here’s a clear, workable path: tax extreme wealth and excess corporate profits to fund a short-term bridge for employers, and let the long-term payoff do the rest.

Short term: We raise the floor in steps and cover part of the gap for smaller employers with credits funded by taxes on extreme wealth and excess corporate profits.
Long term: Local businesses gain a larger, steadier customer base, lower churn, and fairer competition. Workers bring home enough to live—and to spend on Main Street.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Echoes of a Genocide & Alarms of a New One

No two histories are identical—and the Holocaust remains a singular crime. But atrocity prevention is about recognizing patterns early enough to stop the worst from happening. Looking at how Nazi Germany marginalized and brutalized Jews before full-scale extermination, and comparing that to credible warnings being raised today about Palestinians—especially in Gaza—helps clarify urgent risks, responsibilities, and remedies.

This piece draws on widely accepted early-warning frameworks for mass atrocities, then maps key parallels in rhetoric, law, spatial control, collective punishment, and international response. It also names crucial differences—because precision matters when stakes are this high.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

“Right to work” is a marketing triumph and a policy failure.

“Right to work” sounds like freedom. In practice, it’s a corporate playbook to defund unions, depress wages, and tilt power away from the people who make this country run. The slogan sells “choice”; the policy manufactures free riders—workers who benefit from union contracts while paying nothing for the representation that wins them. That is the point. It’s not about liberty; it’s about weakening the only large-scale counterweight ordinary workers have to corporate power.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Tax The Rich - Eliminating America’s Billionaire Class

The billionaire class has a choice: invest in the America that made their wealth possible or undermine democracy to preserve their power. So far, many have chosen the latter. But history shows that when ordinary people demand accountability and fairness, systemic change is possible.

If America is to honor its promise of government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” we must confront the corrosive influence of extreme wealth and build an economy — and a democracy — that works for everyone.

The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the American dream itself.

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Hands Off: Why Privatizing Social Security and Medicaid Would Be a National Mistake

Public programs like Social Security and Medicaid aren’t just policy successes—they’re moral victories. They represent what America looks like when it takes care of its own.

Privatization is not modernization. It's a cynical attempt to convert public solidarity into private profit, one budget line at a time. If we allow that to happen, we won’t just lose these programs—we’ll lose the social contract that binds us together.

In the richest country in the world, no elder should live in poverty, and no child should go without healthcare. It’s time we stop apologizing for our public programs—and start fighting like hell to protect and expand them.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

From Walls to Welcome: A Humane, Tech-Driven Path to Citizenship for the American Melting Pot

The American Dream wasn’t built behind a wall. It was built by hands from all over the world—risking everything for a shot at freedom, fairness, and a better life.

Today’s immigration system is a moral failure and an economic blunder. But with the right mix of technology, transparency, and humanity, we can build a smarter, safer, and more just path forward.

Let’s be bold enough to say it clearly: It’s time for a system that tracks criminals, not families. That welcomes workers, not walls them out. That transforms undocumented people into documented taxpayers and future citizens.

That’s not just policy—it’s patriotism.

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You Are the Product: It’s Time for a Data Privacy Bill of Rights

The American Revolution was fought over unfair taxation and foreign control. Today, we face a new tyranny: corporate surveillance without consent, profit without accountability, and data extraction without limits.

A Digital Bill of Rights is not a luxury—it is a necessity. In the 21st century, privacy is power, and if we don’t reclaim it now, we risk surrendering our democracy, autonomy, and even our humanity to the cold logic of unchecked algorithms and profit-hungry platforms.

This isn’t just about tech. It’s about freedom. Let’s rise to defend it.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Healthcare is a Human Right: Why America Must Join the Rest of the Developed

America’s obsession with privatized healthcare has produced a system that is morally indefensible and economically unsustainable. No one should have to choose between treatment and bankruptcy, or watch loved ones suffer because a corporation denied coverage.

If health is wealth—and it is—then universal care is the foundation for a truly prosperous nation. We have the resources, the models, and the public support. What we lack is the political courage.

It’s time for the United States to join the civilized world and treat healthcare not as a profit engine, but as a sacred right.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Tax Reform for the bottom 90%

The current system is unsustainable. It entrenches inequality, undermines democracy, and erodes the American Dream. Reforming the tax code is not about punishing success—it is about restoring balance, funding essential services, and ensuring that those who benefit most from our society—billionaires and big corporations—contribute their fair share.

Let’s tax wealth fairly, close the loopholes, and rebalance our economy so that opportunity and security are available to all—not just the privileged few.

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