You must log in or # to comment.
Dr King said it best 60+ years ago
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I wish we had another MLK now. The man had quite the way with words
So, the typical centrist/liberal, then?
Maybe from the other direction, too. A lot of people who think anything short of smashing shit up is unproductive. Which isn’t correct, either.
Violent and non-violent methods go together. Peaceful protest needs to be more sustained than the bursts of activity we’ve had. But jumping right into smashing shit won’t work, either.
A lot of the people I know who want to jump straight into smashing shit have neither the desire or ability to help rebuild anything. They want the social media attention of being a smasher but would quickly sell out all of their positions if they had to do the silent work in the background to improve things.
Yup
The typical leftist sitting on their ass and whining online while they wait for a Glorious Revolution to usher in a golden age. If you want things to be better, you do what you can with what you have.
They don’t make excuses for power, though.
Oooh, no. You see the same thing from conservatives and especially conspiracy theory people. It’s fundamental to their worldview.
“They” somehow have complete and total control over their lives. “They” make them make bad decisions, eat poorly, drink and drive, make them vote for dickbags - you name it. It’s an emotional crutch used to negate accepting responsibility for actions, the need for critical thought and planning, or one’s own agency as a human to do anything to change their situation.
Back around 2010 when my family would say “They” were going to take their guns away or put them in FEMA camps, I asked who “They” were. Did this for a few years and it eventually stopped being a Boogey man because it forces putting a name to the evil, which most folks like that can’t do.
Wait, librul bad?? Try not to drown in the meaningless upvotes
This is what ppl do when I suggest linux
When steam os finally drops for regular PCs I think that could become more mainstream. Most people are afraid of breaking their system by installing something else.
IMHO [Fedora Kinoite] (https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/) is this for people who don’t want a gaming-focused OS.
The “there is no perfect solution so therefore there is no solution good enough” crowd. Usually a republican mantra when it comes to any social program.
Also when there needs to be a choice made and they rabidly choose the obviously bad one: “It’s a just a pick your poison thing, ya know?”
If I were to pick between two poisons I would certainly not choose the one labeled “100% for sure death” that was surrounded by an aura of death and decay but they just can’t stop themselves slurping that shit down like it’s juice.
Antivoters slowly dying, somehow voting never works except when gestures about
Do not split and no cracks. You don’t have to agree with how they are fighting the system, but keep your thoughts private and instead, explain how your system is awesome.
But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.
And when they are, that’s going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it’s going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we’re not going to criticize them openly, and they’re not going to criticize us openly.
If we’re the pacifists, we’re not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don’t know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we’re not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.
You don’t have to agree with how they are fighting the system,
This only applies if they’re fighting the system in the first place.
So what is so great about your way of fighting the system? I seriously want to hear it.
I mean, my country of origin is a military dictatorship so I’ll answer with the way I’d like to fight the system if I had something resembling political rights: worker organization and dual power. The problem with the modern Western left is that it’s forgotten its more militant (and, uncoincidentally, more effective) roots; even if you only want to reform the system, in any negotiation you need leverage, and leverage is how you can help the other party if they accept and how you can hurt them if they refuse. Both the carrot and stick are necessary to turn leftwing ideas into leftwing policy. For example, would ICE be running amok like this if a significant number of Americans had went on strike and shut the country down back in April or even June? I sincerely doubt it. What’s great about my preferred way of fighting the system is that there’s a clear and realistic path from idea to action to victory (however you define that) with real precedent. Aside from being a good thing on its own, this means it’ll be much easier to get people on board who are dissatisfied with and hurt by the system but don’t see anybody fighting for them.
That aside, though, I’m not saying it’s my way or the highway; there are plenty of possible ways to fight the system, but liberals (as in establishment Democratic leaders and pro-establishment Democratic rank and file) aren’t doing any of them. Liberals only sabotage the people who are actually fighting the system while doing no fighting of their own. I mean is Schumer fighting the system? Is Jefferies? These people have only ever perpetuated the same system we want to fight and sabotaged or destroyed opposition to it. Unity with your allies is good strategy; unity with your enemies is folly.
Can we not?
The problem with the modern Western left is that it’s forgotten its more militant (and, uncoincidentally, more effective) roots; even if you only want to reform the system, in any negotiation you need leverage, and leverage is how you can help the other party if they accept and how you can hurt them if they refuse.Both the carrot and stick are necessary to turn leftwing ideas into leftwing policy.
For example, would ICE be running amok like this if a significant number of Americans had went on strike and shut the country down back in April or even June? I sincerely doubt it. What’s great about my preferred way of fighting the system is that there’s a clear and realistic path from idea to action to victory (however you define that) with real precedent. Aside from being a good thing on its own, this means it’ll be much easier to get people on board who are dissatisfied with and hurt by the system but don’t see anybody fighting for them.I think you hit the nail on the head with the bolded part. I think the “No Kings” protest was extremely successful. It was huge and peaceful. Trump was itching to send the national guard to LA to take over the city and kill people. The peacefulness of the protest was what kept a lot of people alive.
Also, I strongly believe in the 3.5% rule
Liberals only sabotage the people who are actually fighting the system while doing no fighting of their own.
Yes, stop doing that by shitting on everyone.
Did you… did you just ask me to explain my ideas only to completely ignore them? Like do you think that’s a funny thing to do?
I didn’t ignore them at all, I spoke to them. I crossed out any complaining and I thought the bolded part was amazing. I don’t agree with a lot of them, so I’m taking my own advice.
BoTh sIdEs SaMe!!1!
AKA: a critic.
If I had a nickel for every time people on lemmy discredited voting 3rd party or progressive candidates under the excuse of “muh RCV” or “vote blue no matter who”, I’d have enough money to bribe the DNC into splitting into multiple parties.
If you actually want to make things better then you have to use methods that have a chance of actually working. We have overwhelming historical evidence showing that voting third-party doesn’t.
It really hasn’t been tried.
Except for Perot, Nader, Stein, etc, etc, etc. You’re right! If you ignore all the times it’s been tried, then it’s never been tried!
You said that “voting third party doesn’t work”. The vast majority of voters do not vote for alternative parties or candidates, so no, it hasn’t been tried.
Did you mean to say “Running third party doesn’t work”?
No, Pakistan does not have RCV. Hell they don’t even have a qualified election system with the amount of falsified ballots, yet the third party still defeated that system.
It’s so insane. They’ll yell about the genocide all day but then vote for the candidates supporting the genocide.
Who do they hate the most? Jill Stein, the candidate who opposes the genocide! Make it make sense.
