If the rest of the first world had the same per capita consumption of China, we wouldn’t be barrelling towards the point of no return in the way we are now. A large majority of pollution in China comes from manufacturing goods for the Global North.
Yes so “communist” China is a willing participant in the destruction of our planet. And seeks to benefit directly and operate in full compliance with the hyper consumerism that is getting us further and further into global disrepair. Got it. Glad we agree.
There are Rules for Rulers. In the background there are always nobels, clergy, bankers, businessmen, military and the common folk each with their own demands and reasons to pressure or remove the ruler of their demands are not met.
There are a enough examples of leaders trying to change too much and being assassinated. Although these days that’s more killed in the media.
He's an addict who has avoided triggers until now. As we speak, he's visibly shaking and sweating, scratching at his arms and trying to get his old copy of Pokemon Snap to boot.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to not disparage someone’s childhood obsession on the internet unless you’re prepared for the backlash. Nostalgia runs feverish among forum users.
I see his late night ads on OTA TV way too often. I look forward to “Hi, It’s Mike Lindell. I’ve been brought up on federal charges and to pay my legal fees, I’m selling my pillows at a deep discount. Please buy some! I really need the money to pay my lawyers or I’ll go to jail!!”
It’s worse than that. New NYT poll has Trump and Biden neck and neck right now. The right is so drunk on it’s own farts that nothing has changed. And honestly nothing will change their minds at this point. They like and believe the reality he sells, regardless of it’s basis in facts or laws.
Decades of pervasive propaganda across multiple mediums, coupled with a systematic assault on public education and the very concept of critical thinking. The most noteworthy propagandists masquerade smugly under banners like “conspiracy theorist” or “patriot” rather than “liar” or “fascist.” They transformed the human-shaped turd Donald Trump into a folk hero, and they’re successfully pitching ordinary center-right statesman Joe Biden as a radical leftist.
I wonder if Donald Trump has ever washed a dish in his life. Or a piece of clothing. If he’s ever put a bag of trash in a trash can. Changed a light bulb. Boiled an egg. I don’t think he would even know how. He’s indicated at least once in interviews that grocery stores are completely unfamiliar to him. He literally doesn’t understand how they work. Food just materializes at his table, at the appointed time. Including his favorite, well-done steak slathered in ketchup.
I think if Donald Trump had to fend for himself for one week, even with a million dollars in a bank account, he would starve to death in dirty underwear. Yet about one half of America is convinced that he’s a man of the people who can relate to our daily struggles. Because of the machine.
Why would you put a bag of trash in a trash can? Usually you put empty bags in, then take them out when they’re full (and put them in a dumpster or something).
Some trash services and infrastructure involves taking the trash bag from the kitchen, putting it into a can and placing that at the roadside. So, placing the bag in the trash can is step 2.
(Having grown up poor, I thought the fancy under-sink trash bags were just on Diff’rent Strokes. And a plastic trash appliance with a lid to hold the bag was an ephemeral luxury that only appeared every now and then :-) )
The only people who have landlines anymore are old boomers and people who need a landline for WFH jobs and they probably don’t even answer it. I know I didn’t when I had a landline specifically for work.
Boomers are more likely to answer a poll. With the progressive young people if they get an unknown number their cell they ignore it. And they don’t have a landline or answer mail. There’s no accurate way to poll everyone. They could try polling via the internet and then get all democrat responses.
After seeing the state of our country I would think so. Millions of teenagers just became voters and have been just watching from the sidelines this shit show. Everyone likes a common enemy. Going after abortion was probably their biggest mistake.
Let’s certainly hope so. I would have to imagine that everyone who’s just turned 18 and has younger siblings isn’t too keen on carpooling to work with a 14 year old so the book banning and child labor nonsense should spur some votes to stop the insanity as well.
Its not really a matter of if I care. I cannot sway billionaires, the ones who put us into this situation. I cannot make them stop destroying the planet. They do not care what I think, and they are solely motivated by profits. Nothing else. They have no morality, no sensibilities, no sympathy, and they have absolutely no desire to do literally anything about the unfolding climate crisis. They don’t care. They’d double emissions in a heartbeat if they’d make a few cents off of it. God knows they’ve done it before, and they’ve done much worse for much less money.
Until the money billionaires have stolen from us is rightfully given back to us, we have no means of intervening directly ourselves. The only other option is insurrectionary revolution. Those in the ruling class have shown us consistently over the last 150 years that they have callous disregard for the environment and for the future of humanity. They have shown time and again they will ignore all warnings, they will dismiss all concerns, they are apathetic to human life, and are solely focused on the accumulation of stolen wealth. There’s no middle ground here. If we want to do something meaningful to mitigate this crisis, the billionaires and the ruling class have to go.
If it gets too hot, they’ll just buy a bigger AC unit. Then a bigger one. Then they’ll move underground. Until that gets too hot as well.
There was a meme floating around a while back with a quote from some native american fellow saying something along the lines of ‘only when the last bison has been killed,[…] the last tree has been felled, will they realized they can’t eat money’.
Their power of the rich only exists as long as the rest of the people are giving it to them. We as a collective are not able to break away though. At the end of it all apathy goes both ways. They are apathetic to human life, the rest of humanity is apathetic to human life. It’s a self perpetuating system. The ‘fuck you, got mine’ mentality is the one to blame here and perhaps it’s one of the traits that brought us so far.
And, for all the good and bad it’s brought us, we conquered the planet (grey connotation intended there) because it was ‘never enough’. For instance, some creatures could fly. We couldn’t. So we fixed that by keeping birds in cages as pets and by inventing powered flight.
Undeniably, we’ve gotten ourselves in quite a pickle with this mentality, but I propose here that they are the inevitable result of humanity. Hoarders have been around since humanity started killing each other for resources (see monarchies as an example). They are probably not fecking off too soon. And I don’t believe eat the rich is a solution because people will just eat the closest rich person and change the definition of rich to ‘has a bit more than me’ to justify it.
Depends, how likely do you see a socialist insurrectionary revolution happening?
To be clear, I do care. I’d like to have a good life. But I cant snap my fingers and magically radicalize the entirety of the world. I do my best with the limited platform I have, but I’m only one radical anarchist.
I’m not saying you can or that you’re expected to. Just like a single rain drop doesn’t make a flood.
But if every rain drop got discouraged from falling because it can’t make a flood all on its own we’d have been in droughts earlier and more often.
As far as likelihood, I think we’ve been approaching a revolution of some kind or another for a couple decades at least. It could be a violent one like the French Revolution, or a cultural one like the Industrial Revolution. Time, events, and people will make that determination, but the visible unrest with income disparity grows more obvious on a pretty regular basis.
The Lorax which is really the most applicable one here.
If you haven’t read it I’ll also suggest The Butter Battle Book if you’re interested in morality that boomers retroactively want to have not taught their children
It’s looking more and more depressing on that front too…
Apparently we’re discovering that our type of star system with its long periods of stability and lack of local disruptive bodies is incredibly, incredibly, rare… There are a (literal) astronomical amount of systems out there so there’s no way we’re the only one with life, but it’s really looking like there could only be a “handful” of others out there :/
If you have the energy to try I’d say do so, but be careful not to overexert yourself. When it comes to doing good or altruistic things that don’t have a lot of direct value to us, we all have different amounts of energy. If that energy runs out, people burn out and stop doing anything. With that in mind, try to do small things here and there. For following your dreams, I’d say to my knowledge we only live once and you should do something you enjoy, and it’s possible at any age to change careers, but it’s important to be realistic and build a plan before making the jump.
IMO, it's always better to try. Worst case scenario is that nothing changes, so no worse than if you didn't. The only sane choice in that kind of situation is to pick the one with a chance for improvement.
In my experience, giving a shit about what you're doing has a bunch of positing knock-on affects as well. You just end up feeling better about yourself. In your specific scenario it sounds like trying would also afford you the opportunity to live a happier life, and that's worth chasing. The world is fucked, but scientists keep saying they if we act soon it's not so fucked they we're past the inflection point to un-fuck it.
Seeing how we’ve known about it for decades and this is the amount of progress we’ve made towards slowing/fixing it… idk maybe I’m just being cynical, then again Covid really showed us just how much the general public doesn’t care about their well-being and other’s wellbeing
I had a slight glimmer of hope at the start of covid-19, when people were dazed and confused and isolating and waiting for a vaccine. At the very start, I actually thought humanity is proving we’re not that bad.
So, your answer to climate change is to kill people? Other than that idiotic proposal, which others do you have that people should implement and which would end climate change?
One could argue that we (humans) are doing exactly what we are meant to do and that the climate change isn’t a ‘problem’ on the grander scale.
Change is only ‘bad’ based on perspective. Climate Change could also be the pressure catalyst that drives evolutionary change. The pressure exerted on coal underground could be considered ‘bad’ for the coal but it also drives the transformation of coal into diamond.
This is exactly why I dislike the phrase climate change. Outside of academia, it should be ‘climate catastrophe’. Or maybe ‘sixth mass extinction’. Those are much less ambiguous.
Mate believe me i’m thorn between the exact same feelings…
It’s hard to find a balance in an unbalanced world, a world that is demanding us to work hard to fix important problems and to create new and different possibilities.
At the same time a lot of us are just needing social interactions to the point they are starving: a lot of people of my generation grew up with technology ( the specific capitalist kind of technology that wanna keep you glued to the screen even if it’s hurting you) and are really in the need of some real human contact.
Finding a balance is incredibily hard, there’s this will of finding truth: true actions, true relationships, true help.
But at the same time the actions required to find solutions could take us a lot of time, mental and phisical resources…
But from as i see it now, i feel good if i can live one good day with the people i love even if rarely, than living with the consciousness i’ve never even tried to do something to change the world and create a better future for me and for them.
Think about the difference between Reddit and Lemmy. They both offer similar functionality, but Reddit will set your phone on fire if it gets the chance.
The same is true for YouTube. Browsing YouTube is scrolling through an image gallery, only video playback should be a problem. Yet, it will consume more resources than a well equipped laptop had when YouTube was launched. That’s insane.
We’re moving in a direction where computers get faster and faster, but for the last 10 years or so, the actual utility of the system as a whole stagnated. Besides games, what can a modern computer do, that a 2014 model couldn’t?
You think it’s bad now? Wait until ChatGPT is the one coding things.
I mean AI code is getting banned from tons of open source projects. I don’t expect a huge AI programming boom, except for proprietary software that I won’t use on my personal systems anyways
Last year, I got myself a new Camera, a Lumix S5, and after uploading some photos to DeviantArt (I have had the same account for almost 20 years) and browsing my gallery I realized that I had had enough.
It was so slow and annoying to work with.
So I sat down and started work on a simple webpage that I could host on a normal webhost.
And I built a nice index page in HTML/CSS, and then used photo albums generated by digiKam for the photo albums.
It loads fast, it is easy to navigate, fairly easy to update, and the photo albums can be navigated with arrow keys or swipe gestures.
I am considering writing a blog UI for me to be able to make a simple blogging page, I’ll still write it in static HTML/CSS, so I’ll have to write every blog entry in HTML as it stands now, but I’ll keep looking for easier alternatives
Word. I often complain at work how programming and programmers seem to take “computing resources are cheap” as “USE FUCKING EVERYTHING”. There is fuckloads of bloat and web frameworks that are somehow marketed as “lightweight” despite making everything, even the development speed, worse in nearly every aspect.
Video playback is a wholly different thing, tho, because of all the encoding/decoding that keeps file size down.
If you like doing the web dev work, it’s not hard to implement a simple bbcode using regex matching and replacement. At least, it was pretty easy using php and sql.
Remember when if your aunt wanted you to build her a computer that she’d only use for “web browsing”, that meant you could opt for the cheap components?
Yeah, it’s amazing how upvoted the previous comment is. Just a bunch of idiots jumping on the web-hate bandwagon when even basic media players like Kodi have a tough time playing back video on the Pi.
It just isn’t a very optimized device for video playback. The Pi 5 is actually a step backwards as well, providing only H265 hardware video decode which the web doesn’t even use.
the most enraging thing i’ve ever experienced on windows was when they started automatically “off-loading” files on my drive because i was running out of space. what the fuck, fuck you, i needed that, die in a fire and never touch my drive again. if i need more space i will fucking make more space
Ah, but those aren’t really your files. You clicked “Agree” on the 10,000 page EULA so now Microsoft owns you body and soul and all of your offspring out to the 17th generation. They’re just moving around their contracted work product and if you don’t like it you can go pound sand, assuming you pay Microsoft $30/mo for the “Pound Sand^TM^” account license.
What I’ve seen so many people not understand with the situation we are in right now, is that we can’t fix our current situation in one election. Everything is far to tucked up for that, so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things. People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party. The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will (obviously not saying everything biden has done has been good).
People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.
Incredible take. “Say what you will about fascists, at least they support the two party system.”
so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things.
Democrats were good at the first part, but not the second. I remember lots of Dems saying “Vote for Biden, and then we’ll hold his feet to the fire!” Well, there was no “holding his feet to the fire”, because that’s seen as enabling Trump.
The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will
Yes, but there are candidates who are better, such as Jill Stein and Cornel West. You can’t vote for a perfect candidate, but you can vote for the best candidate.
You need to also vote for someone who actually has a chance to win. Voting for a better candidate who realistically can’t win in elections like this were someone like Trump could win is basically handing Trump the win. His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them. I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.
I live in a blue state, so using that logic, I shouldn’t vote at all. Voting for Trump or Biden is a waste of time, because the state will go blue regardless.
His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them.
If Biden killed your family in front of you, would you still vote for him?
I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.
wait, that is both of them! So, the felon adulterer serial liar narcissist one or the one that is older by two years and doesn’t know where he is or what he is saying sometimes?
Right? Everything you can say negative about Biden can be said about Trump and Trump will be the worse offender of the two. Biden does have positive qualities, which I honestly cannot think can be said about Trump. He is a sushi roll consisting entirely of turd.
And you are happily imprisoning yourself into believing that the system is right to only offer you these two as candidates. If everyone that was progressive and unhappy with Biden would vote for Stein, then she could win. It is the mere talk about her having no chance of winning and the vote being wasted that keeps people in line to take the system as is.
I see the same arguments made against voting for smaller parties in my country where there is a minimum % they need to achieve before getting parliament seats. It is a system designed to preserve the current political elites with their network to the economic and cultural elites against ideas and movements taking a foothold.
Everyone sees what Biden is and what he stands for. If everyone who disagrees with that would take to the streets and demand the DNC to hold a real primary, or better yet demand fundamental changes to the political system, you would be surprised what is possible.
are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.
Hooooooly fuck this gets 27 upvotes? There it is folks. Leftists are doing more damage by refusing to vote than the people who stormed the capitol. This hot take brought to you by lemmy.
The Republican party wouldn’t exist if everybody voted. That is a straight up fact. As fucked as our election system is, they are far enough the minority that if everyone got out, the EC wouldn’t matter.
You want a “left light” and a “true left”, you aren’t going to get it by abstaining, or by voting for nonviable moonshot third-party candidates. You are going to get it by abolishing the far right party and making that tiny sliver of the whole population realize that their antiquated views aren’t welcome here.
They need to be crushed.
They only exist because people don’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils, so instead they just don’t vote. And what do you know, a -1 for the less evil is just as effective as a +1 for the more evil.
All of their success is brought on by feeding apathy in their opposition, making it more difficult to vote, destroying any faith in the system, and gerrymandering.
So yes, in my opinion, the far left refusing to hold their nose for a few minutes may as well be voting for the insurrectionist.
Then the way to do that is find a candidate in the primaries who appeals to everyone you need to make that happen. It was never a secret Biden was not that person.
It’s a free country though. Feel free to go with whatever pitiful strategy you want. But you won’t get the pro-corporate genocide supporting brain dead geriatric with my help. Let me know when you’re ready to negotiate.
And if the Republicans get power this time around with a plan to remove all of our rights to hold even fair elections (project 2025) there won’t be any negotiating. I’m a white cis male and it seems like you are too. We’ll be fine either way. It’s minorities and vulnerable classes that will get hit the most, like always. Women lost rights this last time around, it worries me how much more worse it will get.
Do I want Joe? Hell no, but I’ll vote D for the rest of my days and walk through glass to do it. Once there’s no more Rs then we can argue between Joe Biden and AOC. Still ain’t perfect but a lot better than what we have.
It’s a free country for now, feel free to sit this one out.
And if the Republicans get power this time around with a plan to remove all of our rights to hold even fair elections (project 2025) there won’t be any negotiating.
Sounds like the 2020 primaries were pretty important.
In a two party system the only way to “crush” the extreme right is by establishing another party to take the spot in the two party system. And you know what will happen then? The Dems will move from being the far right party with gay rights to being the extreme right party. Because they already are far right by any sensible measure.
So this happened under Obama. People voted blue no matter who, gave Dems a super majority and they used it to pass a GOP-crafted bill that forced people to pay for useless private insurance.
The party itself needs to change and the types of candidates that the establishment supports needs to change. That doesn’t happen when they can do their pied piper thing and keep winning. And no “just one last hit” won’t let them overcome the addiction to corporate conservativism.
we can’t fix our current situation in one election.
We can never fix the current situation in one election. Fixing the American system, within the parameters set forth by that system, requires a dedicated voting bloc that lasts multiple elections refusing to vote for the Dems until they shift far enough left to appease that bloc. As long as you are focused on the next election, your prescription for fixing American politics is just as unrealistic as a random Twitter tankie declaring a general strike.
If Project 2025 is successful, we won’t ever have another democratic election. Our election is going to work like Russia’s does after that point, and we will have a dictator of some kind that pretends to hold elections.
You are very right, and I feel your pain. I’m not judging you for feeling that way, at all.
I just don’t think that abstaining from voting is going to work in favor of fixing this issue. If anything we need to keep voting to keep the country as left as it can be for now, until we can shift the two parties we are forced to pick from farther to the left.
As I said in another comment, this mode of thought is completely defeatist. If you rule out the possibility of a violent uprising and look at how to change our system from within the system itself, the ONLY way to push the country left is for a dedicated bloc of people to refuse to vote for centrist Democrats for multiple elections in a row until the party center aligns with that bloc. That’s the reason why every one of the last few elections has been “the most important election in history” and all the other crap.
To push the Dems left you can either a) reward them for moving left or b) punish them for moving right. Continuing to vote for them year after year as they continually move to the right accomplishes neither of these things.
you can either a) reward them for moving left or b) punish them for moving right
You’re talking about the political will of a nation as you would training a puppy. It’s incredibly reductive and simply not how the overton window works.
If the republicans win the next several elections the democrats will move further to the right to try to steal votes off them. The republicans will have to move further to the right to differentiate themselves from the democrats.
Not surprisingly, the more republicans win elections the further right everything moves.
Your position is exactly where the conservatives would have you. They can’t win your vote so their best outcome is to convince you not to vote.
If every single incentive structure rewards the Democrats for shifting to the right, please tell me how on earth they are under any pressure at all to shift back to the left. The answer is that they’re not, and the people who believe that they’re engaging in the system and pushing it in the right direction are simply fooling themselves as they take part in the system’s unstoppable rightward movement.
I mean all the concerned people could take to the streets right now.
The DNC wants you to believe that all you can do is cast your vote for something every other year and just take the options presented. In that sense they are worse than the Reps who encourage their base to be active for more than just the ballots and it is working.
Especially now the Dems give me huge 1984 vibes in how the individual should handle politics relative to the party.
People do understand that concept, but it’s literally what Democrats have been doing for the past 40 years and it has put us right here where we are right now. The “lesser of two evils” thing just has no propellant left, no one is buying that line anymore. Neoliberalism needs to go before Democrats can start winning again.
You need to understand that people have been saying “just put the neolibs in power again and we’ll work to improve things” every election cycle, and now we are closer to fascism than we’ve literally ever been. You at least understand why people see that strategy as a failure, right? Like, you understand why no one believes it anymore?
A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years. America’s voting system doesn’t allow the never-have-fascism votes to be pooled with the delay-fascism votes, so unless there’s a decent chance for a mass swing of voters from delay-fascism to never-have-fascism, trying to encourage a small-scale swing only makes immediate fascism more likely by weakening the only thing with a chance to delay it.
If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.
A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years.
That’s an extremely hard case to make at this point though when the “not” fascist guy is funding a genocide and refusing to entertain the measures we’d need to take to actually take the fight to the fascists (ex. Championing an effort to pack the supreme court). Neoliberals are not truly acting like democracy is on the line, they say it a lot but it’s not what their actions communicate, which makes it difficult to believe they’d ever stop obstructing progress.
Neoliberals don’t stop or stall fascists by getting into power – they just soft sell it and give the general public time to acclimate to the slipping of the Overton window. They do this in service of corporate interests rather than theocracy the way the far-right does but it ends us up in the same place.
If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.
Now is the time that the Democratic establishment chooses to try to strong arm the left into voting for them, they do this every election; claim the sky is falling and that we must vote for them or else. So I guess my view is, if they have assessed that they can risk playing a game of chicken, so can voters.
I understand Project 2025 and its seriousness, but that problem is going to be there every election from here until such a time that the GOP dissolves. I’m skeptical that 4 years will allow them to achieve everything they want to without sweeping the house and senate too. The president cannot legally be crowned king, and if they try to do that perhaps that is what it will take to actually radicalize the self-sedated upper middle-class liberals and political fence-sitters.
I’m sick of defensive leadership, and any offensive needs to start with attacking the Democratic structure that’s making the party so ineffectual and complicit. More time is not enough in my opinion, people were talking about GOP plans to capture the supreme court as far back as Bush Jr. and giving Democrats wins achieved nothing. They need to be forced to take it seriously and I just don’t see that happening without some pain (for them and, unfortunately, us).
Not having enough time and voting for the least fucked candidate is old and tired. How long do we vote for the Turd over the Douche instead of voting for someone that we actually believe in?
Outside of voting, you have options. I’m not American, but I’d advise any communists to vote Biden simply because the repression under Trump could get really ugly, hindering any proper organisation. Just view it as what I think it also actually is: A cynical, pragmatic move to save you and other working people from more open repression, nothing more.
But before and after voting: Put your energy into unions like the IWW, into neighbourhood organisations for mutual aid, into community defense like the SRA or Redneck Revolt, into antifascist organisation, into refining your own position and presenting it to others. Create networks and connections. All preventing Trump is doing is buying time for now to do exactly that. Things will only get worse in the decades ahead, with no end in sight for the climate catastrophe and further decay of capitalism - and laying the groundwork of actually being able to do something is critically important right now, in my opinion.
Of course everyone is in the end their own master when it comes to decisions like this. Just - remember that by not voting in this specific election you also aren’t changing anything. And while I fully understand the desire to organise for a third party, they have been marginalised effectively, at least I personally don’t think electoral politics will bring any relevant changes, one way or the other. They are just about who carries the whip used against you, and in this case if the are openly and harshly, or covertly and less efficiently using it.
That all being said - I think a few people here overestimate the amount of tankies and communists that won’t vote Biden. The group is marginal in the big scheme of things. If Biden loses, you can be certain, they were not responsible, they are most likely less than 1% of voters. Personally, I’d blame the corporate core of the Democratic party and middle class liberals for being out of touch with reality.
If Biden loses, you can be certain, they were not responsible, they are most likely less than 1% of voters
Nah, they’ll blame us the same way they blame us for losing the 2016 general election. We are simultaneously too small to matter but able to turn the tide of the largest election in the United States.
I’m voting party for socialism and liberation and you can too. They’re running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.
For me there’s no better time to start building a new American political formation. If the democrats wise up and snap left when they see the third party/lack of turnout then that’s fine too.
The left got so close to taking the DNC in 2016 they had to go to court to affirm their right to tell the left to eat a dick regardless of voters or donations, and now they’re pushing legislation to strip the red tape from taking away nonprofit status from leftist orgs. Dems are running scared and it has their faschie flag flying high (see op disinformation campaign claiming anyone who dislikes biden is a ‘tankie’)
Of course, even though they’ve spent more time attacking the left than they EVER have Republicans they’ll be happy to place the singular blame on us then march further right so they can shocked pikachu when the left doesn’t vote for them then either.
Thats why Biden stepping down is so important right now. They need to get guys like this poster to vote D this time. Any generic dem with a pulse will do that.
Its the partys fault if they cant get an easy vote, not the voter’s
Voting for what you actually want to happen is literally the only way to communicate your needs to political parties that they actually listen to.
There are people whose whole education and job is just to know how many people in a given district that the party can pick up by adopting aspects of a particular platform.
Tell them! Tell them that you won’t vote for them unless they take up the antiwar, Medicare for all torch! Tell them that they can’t get your district without a housing guarantee and free school lunch! Tell them to stop the genocide in the only way they listen to!
And that’s great, that’s what I do in the primaries. I’m not about to risk a Trump presidency just to place a vote for a 3rd party that I probably also don’t actually like. Just plug the nose and stop the larger threat.
Oh well, if you clearly communicate your needs during the primary and fall in line for the general then why wouldn’t the democrats reward your loyalty by adopting your positions!
How clear and transparent would the upcoming trump presidency have to be for you to jump ship from the democrats and take up a position that they have to aim for in 2028?
So, take this point of view as what it is: a view on the situation from an outsider, I am not American, I am a German communist. While I do probably look more closely at American politics than most likely the average American simply from being interested in politics to a pathological degree, I might not have the full picture of an American who is also as interested in politics.
I think in this particular moment, as much as the Democrats do their best to antagonise you, as much as you are correct that someone like Biden will continue with the same status quo bullshit that created the situation to begin with, as much as he won’t be helping the people suffering from (neo)-colonialism in a meaningful way overseas - I don’t think that this particular election is the time to vote third party. The chance may come, and best then to do it not as individuals based on your personal conscience, but as an organised group, with concrete messaging communicated. And even in other elections and outside this vote, organising for a third party - while I personally don’t have a lot of hope for electoral politics - is certainly better than investing energy into the Democratic party, whose supporters seem to have no problems spewing hatred towards you for not agreeing with their party line and view of reality.
But I think underestimating Trump could be genuinely dangerous. Not because he will “ruin America” or anything like that. Simply, because he will be in a position to dial up repression, potentially leaving you with a situation in 2-4 years, where the party you voted for has to move underground, either having gotten outlawed or further marginalised and infiltrated. The situation looks critical enough to me, that under a Trump presidency, unions and leftist orgs will face open persecution much more than under someone like Biden - who is admittedly bad enough. Persecution up to outright criminalising them, to encouraging right-wing militias to kill their members with a slap on the wrist as a consequence or no legal repercussions at all. Yes, I do think that is unfortinately a realisitic possibility. And at this point, I don’t think leftist orgs in the US have the resilience yet to efficiently organise in the underground.
That being said, I won’t tell you a vitriolic “you will be at fault” if you choose to vote and organise as you want to. I do also see advantages, like getting visibility for your issues and potentially by reaching certain threshholds getting public funding support and the likes (that exists in the US too, right?). But I’d still advise it in this election - as shitty and cynical as it is - to vote for the old fart that doesn’t swing the whip of the state as hard on your back as the one that might outright strangle you with it. Getting a proper communist, grassroots organisation running in the United States is important for the whole world, and I fear it will be impossible, or at least much, much harder under Trump (mostly, again, because there are no proper structures in place to move into illegality and organising underground, from everything I can tell.)
How does de la Cruz intend to stop arms shipments without any congressional representation to push legislation to do so?
If Congress says money must be spent on sending Israel weapons, then the president has to follow that in some capacity. The president could try to stop shipments, but that would result in a swift court case, and the president would be compelled to continue sending weapons. The executive branch has discretion in how to do so, but it unfortunately does not have the authority to end it.
You need Congress if you’re going to stop all shipments. Alternatively I suppose you could try to have the judiciary in your favor, but that means de la Cruz now needs the Supreme Court on her side.
It’s a complete misconception in American society and politics that the president can do anything. They’re certainly the most powerful single individual, but Congress is still much stronger.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation would be much better served trying to win Congressional races so they can push for bills to end weapon shipments. If they could take a number of strong Republican districts with their message, it would give them a lot more influence.
lets say youre right, and the president can’t do anything to stop arms shipments. simply forcing the (it wouldn’t be swift, the supreme court works on a set schedule) case would be better than rubberstamping the appropriations of our genocidal congress.
simply forcing the supreme court to rule would be powerful!
make them put their names on their genocide! even if the executive fails wouldn’t it be better to actually try everything to stop the genocide than to simply say “nothing i could do!”?
of course, if the executive branch were so weak there’d be no reason to fear project 2025, but i’ll leave that alone.
but there are tons of ways to hamstring aid, usually it’s not explicitly listed what aid will be sent in a bill, that’s left up to the executive. in that case de la cruz could send nonlethal military supplies like food, medical and replacement parts.
in the case that aid is specified, it can be slow walked as part of a peace deal, it can be deactivated or simply sent during adverse conditions that will ensure it never arrives.
psl has been running in state, local and congressional elections since 2008.
its astounding to me how many people reply to posts like this saying “you can’t win, so dont try!” or “its going to be hard and people will oppose you, so give up!”.
I came here to say this. I don’t really do networking so I don’t have much care for this issue, but the clarity of the explanation was enjoyable. Plus I learned a couple of little things too.
That shit works IRL too. Why do you think therapy practices often have themselves positioned in front of a wall of books? Not that it’s a bad thing; it’s good for outcomes to believe your therapist is competent and well educated.
Nuh-uh, sound has to go over HDMI as well. You may only partake in your own culture through DRM-approved channels.
This got me thinking, could you still get an abortion in the bad parts of the US if you trademarked your DNA, and claimed that the condom breaking violated DMCA?
You know, show up at the doctors with a ton of papers headlined
ESL person question here - isn’t “male” used as an adjective more than a noun? If you used “pregnant female” as a counterpart, it would sound weird to me, like we were talking about rabbits, not people.
As an enby who was assigned male at birth, there’s a decent chance my penis could get somebody pregnant. I’d rather be referred to as a male than a man or a father. They’re all quite unappealing and untrue terms, but male is the most true out of them. I could have used the word seeder, but that’s less well known.
Maleness is a complex many-faceted social construct unifying a set of correlated patterns in genetics, endocrinology, musculoskelature, reproductive biology, and possibly neurology. I’m mostly not male, but I do have the parts of maleness that relate to producing and delivering semen, and it might even be fertile.
lemmy.world
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