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I am a Leftist and agree with the Leftists take but the Liberal in this meme has a more effective message. The majority of people have issues neurologically with truly caring about things they can’t at least imagine affecting them and there are a huge number of people working their asses off 40+ hours a week while struggling to get by. Not that we should abandon the elderly or disabled but we should be diverse in our messaging and who it targets.
The leftists have the easiest message, it’s provide for everyone. It can literally effect anyone.
The liberal messaging muddies the message up, making it unimaginable that it could effect people outside of the narrow scope it presents
What are you talking about? When i was born in the '80s, being unemployed for more than a few month was criminal offense in most socialist European countries. Leftism is beneficial in moderation, but definitely not every leftism is bestism if this is your only criteria for “bestism”
Which European countries were socialist in the 80s?
I like the spirit but were not japan, we have to consider the antisocials.
There need to be requirments to meet to receive entitlements.
Also though capitalism is just bad at providing necessities, slapping a ubi on top wont fix it.
No.
No fucking requirements on human worth, and living is not a bloody entitlement.
Liberals: We should compromise with the fascists and blame trans people for our incompetence
Leftists: DOWN WITH FASCISM AND DOWN WITH BIGOTRY
This misses the point. The point is no one, especially someone who has given back to society by preforming labor, should be left out in the cold.
Why especially?
Why ‘why especially’?
especially someone
This word is the issue that is grinding gears and it’s carrying a heavy weight.
What’s your take on handicapped people?
Is someone who has worked 20 years in a factory and got run over by a forklift and lost both legs somehow worth more than someone who was born without legs to begin with?
I believe a society can be measured by how it treats its weakest member. Or the actual quote:
the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members
None of this prohibits anyone from making more money by working harder than others.
The moment when a society starts arguing over who is more eligible for welfare, that’s when that society moves down to the lowest level that it’s willing to offer.
Youre dismissing the actual need to appeal to an audience. Even those who do not share your particular philosophy.
Its simply an appeal to the capitalist or blue and white collar workers alike.
Some have a living wage. Some take full advantage of the current system and have no qualms.
If your point is that we shouldn’t attempt to appeal to them because its is fruitless that is fine. Just understand, the message was not for you.
Consider an example of a women, who does not work but raises childern and perform other chores to support her husband.
She is quite important in contribution to the society, but when we talk just about working people, we overlook her.
And I am sure there are many such people who are critical for the function of the society, but do not “make money” (i,e wage labor nor even owning capital for that matter)
This is why, IMO, this distinction of “people who work” is counter productive. Everyone should be able to live without poverty.
a women
I will never understand why this particular error is so common, yet it seems no one ever makes the similar mistake “a men” when referring to a single man.
But that would require empathizing with them and just ewe… /s
someone who has given back to society by preforming labor
These are two things that are often lumped together but don’t really have anything to do with one another.
You can be employed and give absolutely nothing back to society (tbh, probably the majority office workers are in that category). You can even be employed and take from society (looking at you, people working in e.g. the tobacco industry).
And you can be unemployed and massively give back to society. Just look at the people who do voluntary work or at the millions of moms and dads who are raising the next generation that will keep society running, all completely without compensation.
I spend all day sitting in front of a PC so that numbers on the screen of some investor go up. That’s not giving back to society.
… fun argument. Maybe someone else will want to engage it.
I think the point is nobody should live in poverty. Fullstop. Addendum to that, workers should be paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. But the first sentence is the core of everything.
They don’t agree with that, they think that if you have a job you are more worthy of being allowed to live.
Ok, I’ll bite.
I think that if you contribute to society you are more worthy of being allowed to live. Live meaning receiving a living wage, not life or death.
“Have a job” is one way to do that and there are many many situations in which it is more difficult for some people to “contribute” than others. But to paint anyone’s political opinion as black and white is a real right wing"ish" style attack.
It sucks, but the libs are the lefts conduit for change. Without them we will be stuck leaning farther and farther right as the right leaners continue to actually work together to take our rights away and we waste our time infighting over stupid shit like this.
I think that if you contribute to society you are more worthy of being allowed to live. Live meaning receiving a living wage, not life or death.
What did the words ever do to you, to be abused in such a way?
To live is to live.
To need any “wage” to do that is already permitting the wrong frame to be placed around this piece of reality.
Everyone should live. Full stop.
If you want nice things, gold trim and giant tvs and monster trucks, then by all means, use a wage for it.
Nobody should fear for their life because they do not labor.
Just needed to clarify that. Had I not, I could see my words being misconstrued to meaning I believe people who don’t have a job should be killed.
You missed their point.
No one, not only workers.
Still not getting it. These people have sacrificed a substantial part of their life and have nothing to show for it.
It is not that working shouldn’t give anything beyond what you get for not working, but that everyone should have access to money to live for.
I am from Denmark and here you earn a fair living wage for most jobs and you have plenty of opportunity to get a high paying job. But for those who are unable to work or work as much or for some other reason are unemployed, they still get paid a small amount of money that they can live for and still has access to things like free health care and free education.
So if you “sacrifice a substantial part of your life” to make a lot of money, you can do that and earn the luxury you get from that. The system just ensures that everyone gets enough to live for, whether they are working or not.
People are saying “no one should live in poverty,” not “no one should live in poverty, by which we mean no one should make money for their labor.” You’re tilting at windmills.
I think youre tilting at the windmills. To say a liberal doesnt believe every one deserves a basic standard of living just isn’t true and is not what was said in the first statment.
You don’t get it, you don’t have to sacrifice anything to have value as a human.
Why do Libs always have to dehumanise people?
If you work 100 or 0 hours a week, you have exactly the same right to basic life needs.
You dont get. Beyond your idea utopian society the society these people labor to build has forsaken them.
I don’t understand why you’re having such a hard time with what they’re explaining to you. No one is disagreeing that working people are getting shafted.
Yeah it’s pretty stupid to slave away under liberal capitalism and expect anything. We clearly don’t live in a utopia, yet these people act like we do and expect to be rewarded by it.
Once people start living in reality and realising our innate worth is more than a number on a corporate timesheet, maybe we can get somewhere.
We could talk but their isn’t some brain trust that is just waiting to be awaken. There is no grand self actualization. Quit wishing for it. People are dumb, scared, complacent creatures. Quit waiting for them to come together, hold hands, and stop the violence.
Thats reality.
People are dumb, scared, complacent creatures.
False. Why do you refuse others their dignity? Is it because you have lost respect for yourself?
People are dumb
them
Hmm.
We don’t need a brain trust, we need you lot to start using what you already have.
Reality is, as long as people like you argue and fight to defend the harmful status quo, things will only ever get worse. But this attitude is so deeply ingrained into you, that you can’t even see that all humans have the same worth.
It is called the Nirvana falacy: rejection of anything that is not an immediate perfect solution.
A road is crossed in many steps, not one giant leap.
It does not apply here to smth that is this fundamental. Living outside of poverty for everyone, is very fundamental and basic, not smth that should ever be compromised upon
Ironic.
At no point in this meme or thread, has the argument ever been ‘We should never go to the 1st step’, it is entirely 'We should aim for the 2nd step, and don’t let the Libs stop you at the 1st.
The only people who reject anything, are the libs who reject the notion that you can work towards the 2nd step.
The only people who reject anything, are the libs who reject the notion that you can work towards the 2nd step.
Do they? In my short lived experience its us leftist that reject just about everything. We don’t engage in elections do we don’t change policy. I can’t even get people around my local DSA to shift toward open source. My pitch there is that we are moving to a parallel economy and independence from capital.
This meme is a microcosm of why we don’t have a real movement. The lib is broadly in agreement and gives us an angle for policy change, but the lefty, and echoed by fellow leftist in the comments, are flipping the table.
I feel like you hear the top line because those specific liberals are trying to convince independents, moderates, conservatives, and people on the right to agree on at least something. Many of the people they’re trying to convince would give a big “NO” if they didn’t include that 40 hours part.
The fact that there isn’t even a “YES” with the 40 hours part caveat is the bad sign.
I don’t think most of the people labeled as liberals would disagree with what the people labeled leftist are saying, but their trying to convince the other people that aren’t even bought in to the first step.
This is also an issue where the people that don’t want to help others have over 50% of the power in the US federal government currently.
Our energy should be focused on bringing these progressive help options to everyone at the state level right now to have the greatest chance of getting these programs implemented.
liberals are trying to convince independents, moderates, conservatives, and people on the right to agree on at least something.
the people that don’t want to help others have over 50% of the power in the US federal government currently
The problem doesn’t just lie in that there is conflict between people who do and do not want to help one another. It’s that there is a whole system in place that rewards the largescale harming of people.
Trying to convince people to want to help each other is a challenge and confronts people’s individualism. That’s not the issue.
But the notion of agreeing on something with people who actively require harming others is fundamentally destructive to that cause.
I’m “collectivize the farms and factories” left, and even I recognize that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get to the second state from the first state than from where we are now.
While that’s true, I think by positioning ourselves at the 2nd state, it allows us to “negotiate” our way down to getting the 1st state. Its kind of like haggling. If you start at the more extreme position, opposition will (in an ideal scenario) try to find a middle ground to agree on. And that middle ground would look like the 1st state. It’s a way of combatting the ratcheting effect.
I do wish the left broadly could unify under the idea that we need to make incremental progress.
A lot of people on this very site think there’s going to be a glorious people’s revolution any day now. I could spend hours describing how unrealistic that fantasy is, but I think more people rather live with their indulgent fantasies than go out and plant trees that they will never sit in the shade of.
I do wish the left broadly could unify under the idea that we need to make incremental progress.
That’s literally been the last century + of western politics, and uh we’ve all seen how that’s turning out.
I wish centrists could unify under the idea that we need to make a complete and total overhaul. That they could recognize that the climate alone will kill us if we don’t do, let alone the fascists and capitalists at our back.
That incremental progress has been so slow its reversing into fascism, congratulations this is the enviable outcome of reformism.
The label we’re gathering under is progressives, it’s mostly leftists but you leave the praxis at home and recognize that no one is going to read a pamphlet
Turns out, when you have good messaging, most people are on board with the practical changes we could make today. Mumdani is a rockstar at it
The Zohran Mamdani campaign has peeled the curtain back from American politics and exposed how much of it has been kayfabe all along. And the people writing the scripts are not happy about it.
I hope it continues, while I know he will win, I hope he also succeeds against the ringmasters and production executives who have manufactured our reality.
I don’t think it’s kayfabe so much as a bunch of consultant brained fucktards desperately grasping at power, but also having no idea why they’re doing this anymore
But Mumdani has shown us that the people really are desperate for leftism. They want what we want, they just need crisp and simple messaging
It is true that far, far more Americans (particularly in larger population centers) want more social and economic benefits from their tax money and aren’t being distracted by the culture war nonsense.
But I do believe the establishment democrat platform is basically owned and operated by the same forces that are empowering the right. AIPAC for one, the rest are a who’s-who of corporate interests and financial institutions.
Creating an opponent against your own cause, but one you can actually control and manage is a trick as old as time itself for fooling people into supporting your side while thinking they’re opposing it. This is why sites like reddit are basically under state control, even though you think it’s swinging left or liberal, the entire spread of narratives there are tightly managed and the closer you look, the more apparent it becomes. (Look up Eglin Air force Base + Reddit for a real tinfoil-clad rabbit hole.)
Welcome back Karl Kautsky. Excited for World War 1?
Oh man do I ever with you. I’m absolutely an idealist, I agree with the OP’s sentiment. But I will absolutely support anyone with any ideology that gets us closer. Small steps are easier to take, this bullshit that everyone thinks we need the perfect candidate with the one weird trick.
See what that got us. I have no goddamned idea where to go from here. I’ll support any ham sandwich that drags us in the right direction.
go out and plant trees that they will never sit in the shade of
I forget about this colloquialism, but find it a good description for how I try to be day to day
Are you aware of how many people starved when farms were collectivized in the Soviet Union?
Are you aware of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” logical fallacy?
It is possible to improve on the methods and priorities of previous attempts.
The problem with the previous attempts was prioritizing ideology over real life problems. Doesn’t sound like socialists are capable of understanding why that’s a problem because they believe that conforming to ideology will magically solve all problems. Just like they believed that in the Soviet Union… which is what caused the famines.
The problem with the previous attempts was prioritizing ideology over real life problems
It was actually not the case, the USSR was the most materialist and least idealist country. The 1929 collectivization drive was kicked together with the first 5-year economic plan of the Soviet Union, which drove a growth of 10%+ in economic output YEARLY during the following decade. This was a necessary preparation measure against the constant threat of external invasion for the sin of being communist, as demonstrated during the Russian Civil War when the Reds were invaded by England, France, the USA, Italy, France and Germany, all of whom helped the Whites in hopes of restoring absolutist monarchy and the Russian Empire. Stalin famously gave a speech in 1931 saying that the USSR was 50-100 years behind in industrialization and they had 10 years to make up for it or they would be crushed. 10 years later, Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
If it hadn’t been for the industrial boom made possible by the rapid collectivization of agriculture, the Soviets would have lost to the Nazis, leading to the extermination of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans according to the Generalplan Ost, ideologically very similar to the contemporary genocide of Palestinians by Isn’treal as an attempt of settler colonialism. Additionally, the industrialization led to the total elimination of famine in a formerly backwater feudal Russian Empire, raising the life expectancy from about 30 years in the 1920s to 60+ years by 1955.
There were mistakes and failures in the collectivization policy which led to a degree of unnecessary suffering, but these weren’t due to idealism, Marxist-Leninists are fundamentally materialist in their analysis which is the polar opposite of idealism, they were the consequence of lack of knowledge and of hurries to do the first successful complete collectivization of land of a nation in human history.
The Kolkhoz system in the Soviet Union is really not to dissimilar to modern farming practices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz
The system of petty/peasant farming is over. Successful farms are already “collectivized”, and hire farmhands to do the work.
https://www.epi.org/blog/how-many-farmworkers-are-employed-in-the-united-states/
Well the only people who are talking about stopping at one state are the centrists arguing we must ‘compromise’ and accept the top only.
I fully support going to both…
Uh…I don’t think you’ve done a check up on where the centrists are lately. Centrists split the difference between the parties, they’re over there going “well, healthcare is good, but who’s going to pay for it? I don’t like what ice is doing, they’re hurting too many people while they look for the criminals”
The abundance liberals also claim they want to do the first one, but they seem like a fresh wave of neolibs
It seems like progrssives are the only ones serious about the first one, and they’re largely on board with the second one
I think you’ve still identified that the meme is trying to get at “there’s ‘left’, and there’s LEFT.” The U.S. public suffers from a dearth of broadly-accepted terminology for labeling these groups, so some group will always misunderstand exactly who you mean.
Both things can be true.
One step at a time.Is our next step going to be passing conservative legislation and pretending its a win for 15 years again?
Yeah, splitting up isn’t a great thing right now. Let’s team up together and fight the nazis.
Im willing to work with anyone who has a real backbone and is acturally willing to fight fascism. People who reject all fascism even a compromised fascism lite.
It’s almost like some people here desperately want to create division in the left.
Glad to see it backfiring on one post.
Shitlibs can’t do anything but blame the left for their failures and deny we exist. And suck Nazi dick. They can fall in line or fuck off–if a shitlib wants to volunteer as a warm body for something I’m doing without trying to subvert it I won’t turn them away, but I doubt that would happen–i have seen zero interest in coalitions or opposing fascism.
Please feel free to prove me wrong.
Can you kindly provide some examples of what you’re talking about?
of a thing not happening? um, sure; here i guess.
Great! Can you please explain some of the specific things you are doing? You mentioned this in your previous comment. Specifically the part about coalitions and such.
can you explain
No, sorry.
They can fall in line or fuck off–if a shitlib wants to volunteer as a warm body for something I’m doing without trying to subvert it I won’t turn them away
Cool! Was this just a lie then?
I don’t need to prove you wrong, I just need to sit back and watch your every effort come to nothing. Proceed!
I can’t tell if this is a bit.
What they were trying to say is now is not the time to divide eachother
Cool maybe they should fall in line then.
OR maybe you should team up on the incremental progress for now, and then show them why more work is needed. You don’t need to be the divisive one.
Who is the incremental progress team? I see the Democrats who pretend to be the incremental progress team, but are really decremental, and the Republicans who are openly decremental.
Weird how ‘compromise to a common end’ always means ‘do my thing and ignore that other thing and also ignore what you wanted’.
Why are you pretending like that’s what they said? One concept is a progression of the same idea but taken beyond the other one - you’re just claiming it’s not because you want to be divisive and pretend like you’re holding the morally correct position to trigger people.
It’s transparent and like… nobody seems to be taking the bait, so why are you even still trying?
Some of the people you see that are dumping on any incremental progress are pro-authoritarian, accelerationists. I believe most of those ones are bad actors/bots though. Any real leftist is wanting to help people however they can/actively helping those in their communities.
People aren’t dumping on incremental progress, largely. The issue is that there has been nobody in power meaningfully working on or achieving that incremental progress. The Democrats just gaslight everybody into thinking they are working towards the incremental progress that we hope for and expect from them, while being blind to the problems and solutions.
Progressives are the ones who are disenfranchised, alienated, and ratfucked - it’s time for you to realize that.
You’re the only person in here talking about splitting up?
Let’s just make sure when this is over, that actual leftists are put in charge so we don’t get a repeat of this in 20 years.
Dude, the leftists shitting on liberals thing is extremely strong around here. You would think the only enemy in sight is the Democratic Party to hear some tell it. Oh look, here comes someone right now to do exactly that!
Well then maybe the Democratic party should stop supporting the Facsists, and should start fighting against them.
The Democratic Party is the insidious great apologizer for Capital. The Democrat Party funds the wars, were the original kings of “mass deportation”, and have been the architects of numerous an austerity policy that has betrayed and immiserated the working class.
The Democratic Party is the more advanced villain, as they wrap their rhetoric in the language of moralism to make them immune to criticism from more “left wing” moralizers. Which is why many are stuck arguing to death in petty fights with the rhetoric of reform and moralism of the Left Wing of Capital while the republicans are more openly evil who are easy to dismiss and not argue with.
Only through recognizing both the Democratic and Republican party as institutions of class control will you ever make progress.
Yes Dems are antilib/antileft as well
Let’s just make sure when this is over, that actual leftists are put in charge
Leftist don’t want to get organized to be a third party or vote as left as they can in major parties. They won’t be in charge because they don’t want to be engaged.
People who are not represented by the two party system are disenfranchised by First-past-the-post voting.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
Specifically that first one, then we break your legs and shackle you to something so you dont get ideas.
Walking in the direction of only one.
Because the other is merely a stop on the way.If you don’t strive for the best option, you’ll settle for compromise.
Yeah you get the compromise first, people realize that it’s great, and push farther from that. Taking the big leap, while not impossible, is much harder and less likely to succeed the way you want.
But you don’t really seem to care about nuance and just want more excuses to insult people who aren’t as left as you are. Obviously even liberals think ubi is the best option
Obviously even liberals think ubi is the best option
And leftists don’t.
UBI is a bandage for capitalism, it’s not a real solution anyone should be pushing for and will remain at risk of being cut for as long as it’s ever implemented.
That’s what politics is, compromise. That’s why “they” say to shoot for the biggest thing you want, because half way there is still better than when you first started.
When was the last time a lib compromised with a socialist or anarchist? With anyone to the left of mecha-thatcher?
Do you even know off the top of your head the compromise positions on police abolition Zionism worker control of the means of production/not living in exploitative tyranny half your waking life abolition of borders universal housing bodily autonomy massive inequality/billionaires the elimination of precarity or environmental sustainability? Like, have you ever heard any of them articulated by a lib?
Edit: has anyone ever in their life heard a lib articulate what a compromise with the left might look like? Once? One single time?
Leftists always have to shut up and fall in line. If we don’t we’re fracturing and we’re the problem, yet the centrist libs never make an effort to compromise or meet our modest expectations on the value of human life.
Because the ratio of libs to leftists is like 10:1 at minimum. Obviously they control the conversation, that’s how democracy is supposed to work. We can’t control the conversation from the minority.
I think this stance isn’t quite the full picture. The issue I see in the US is that over 50% of the people in power federally, Republicans, don’t want even those very moderate positions voted in.
It’s not an issue of leftists being too left, but an issue of there not being enough people sold on leftists views in all the red/purple states. When the 40 hour a week requirement isn’t even getting sold, of course those people further right aren’t voting in a more considerate option.
Really, I feel the issues stem from many people believing that we were close to getting the liberal goals passed federally. Now, it looks like we’re starting back several steps with how much 2024 was a backstep. At this point, trying to get those leftist programs implemented at the state level is the most logical thing to do, specifically in blue states.
I think blue states held off on implementing most of these programs since it is very expensive and it would have made way more sense to fund all these programs federally, but that’s not realistic now. Blue states need to be willing to go into debt to fund these progressive programs, and only after they are implemented and the people are benefiting is it likely that purple/red states also buy into trying these programs.
Don’t get me wrong, the corporate Dems aren’t the ones trying to get these programs implemented at the state level. For that reason, we should primary the non-progressive Dems. Better yet, we should try to get an alternative voting system implemented in each of our states so we get more politicians like Mamdani in office.
Right but have you literally ever heard a shitlib say what compromise with the left might look like? Like ever? Any proposal? An elected figure or your cringe shitlib aunt or literally any of them?
Or do they just mean ‘compromise the left’ as in ‘to a permanent end’?
What do you mean? Compromise on what issues exactly?
I agree with pretty much everything under the sun with left leaning policy. I’m a leftist-liberal since I don’t think those points are inherently mutually exclusive.
Gave a shortish list elsewhere in this thread, find it or don’t.
No, that’s what centrism is, compromise with the right.
We fight for what we want, and we don’t stop halfway sorry.
We fight for what we want
Sure you do buddy, how is that working out?
It’s been working out when leftists are an actual option on the ballot. How has centrism been working out lately?
I’m critiquing their claim of fighting by shitposting on the internet, they’re not out there with a gun stopping fascists, so they can hardly claim to be fighting.
I’ve seen more of this type of accelerationist, cultist talk cropping up lately. As a leftist-liberal, I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive where we can’t be pushing for that incremental positive change while still wanting more.
The fact that over 50% of those on the right, who are in power, don’t want positive change at all -even that incremental change- is what is the worrying sign.
We should be pushing for progressives to be in office and implement these progressive policies at the state level, as it’s clear that we have a big up-hill challenge to get any progressive policies passed federally.
this type of accelerationist, cultist talk cropping up lately
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
Nah I’m agreeing with you; I’m talking about the type of person you replied to though.
damn right. in the US, performing labor is seen as more important than human life. that tells you a lot.
It is a super weird and self contradictory thing. Because yeah, the notion is that labor’s important because labor is how anything gets done, and without things getting done, how does anyone get to live a life at all? Entropy is real after all. So people who would do no labor yet get support from the rest of society are seen as execrable parasites.
And yet… the big goal is to become wealthy so that you can live on the labor of others. The whole enterprise of business is about playing the system so that you can get more for less personal labor. And the highest form of this is to work not at all yet receive even more than mere support: total indulgence.
So how are people at once shat upon for doing no labor but wanting basic support, while others are idealized for doing no labor but wanting total indulgence?
And most of them defend it.
I guess it’s some variation of Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm syndrome was supposedly debunked recently.
What it actually looks to be is a stripped out and twisted version of meritocracy.
“I’ve worked for my achievements and earned my rights, everyone else should do the same or not share in my privileges.”
Liberals watching fascism evolve in real time: “Fuck your guns! Give them over!”
Leftists: “Uh, hell no, are you crazy?”
Liberals: “You’ll get KILLED!”
Leftists: “Yeah, that’s going to be the outcome whether you fight or not.”
Liberals: “Where my 2A people at?!” (got a burn in there. tee hee hee)
Me: “I have loads of guns, practice best I know how, several times a week. Tell me what you would have me do.”
Liberals: <FUCKING SILENCE>
Never heard a single word, not one reply to that question. Here’s your chance to shine!
I haven’t seen masked men in my town. None have come for my brown, legal, immigrant wife. As of this year, I am not outdoors unarmed. Indoors? You can’t catch me shitting without a firearm in reach. Insane? Abso-fucking-lutly insane. No one should live like that. But this is where we’re at in America.
Want to hear something nuts? I was just now showing my wife that I can buy all the gear these fascists are wearing on Amazon.com. Yes, POLICE patches, all of it.
So, to sum, they’ve demonstrated that they’ll kill me. They’ve demonstrated that anyone can look like them. You go figure out how to take that information.
Ban for “inciting violence” in 3, 2…
You don’t get an answer because people get banned for typing the correct answer.
You want to do something? Start organising revolutionaries. Take your time doing so, as they key word here is “organise”. Having a bunch of trigger happy gun hippies walking around helps nobody.
Find some very painful points to hit, then hit them.
Don’t be deterred if the state starts calling you terrorists.
I dont think organizing can be done at this time.
I think it has to be a Franz Ferdinand type thing.
Assassination of a single individual isn’t going to change the entire system. Tearing it all down and rebuilding should be the goal, not kicking the can down the road.
Franz was part of the Black Hand and they organized the whole thing - which fell apart. Franz lucked out as the car detoured past a cafe he was having a coffee in after giving up.
Franz was the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. You’re thinking of Gavrilo Princip.
Hahaha yeah, that was a pretty big slip up.
More and more I’m convinced most Americans have no idea what a liberal, leftist, or other terms actually are. They’re just parroting the words they hear from their feeds.
‘Liberal’ is the funniest because both red and blue accuse each other of being them. My guess is blues think liberalism is laissez-faire and the reds think it’s woke social freedoms. They’re both slightly on the right track, but not at all.
And in the rest of the free world…
Liberals: No one should live in poverty regardless of their ability to perform labour.
Leftists: Yoooo, 40 hrs is fucked. What is this, the 1300s?
Liberals: Actually, yeah that is kind of fucked. An employer shouldn’t be ble to encroach on an employee’s life that much. This is an imbalance of liberties.
Leftist: Great! So what are we going to do bout it?
Liberals: Fuck all. We can’t be sure employees don’t want this too. Besides, someone will sort it out soon, they always do.
Leftists: I’ll donate a union $5 so I can tell my friend I’m left.
And in the next five years, some prolific young gun politician swoops in the 35 hour work week. But due to cultural reasons, everyone keeps working 40 hours and gets plenty of overtime for it. This having the employer pay more and the employee see little benefit because the state haven’t adjusted their now dated tax brackets. But along with very good minimum wage standards and an unemployment rate < 5%, both the leftist and the liberal never found the true source of the poverty and so continued using foreign corporations and large franchise to fulfill almost all of their needs. And everyone but their local infrastructures and communities lived happily ever after until the next global recession hit. The leftist and liberal “really meant it this time” when they said they’d support local and try to live more independently, but the inconvenience of it meant they silently did not.
“Rest of the world.”
Let me introduce you to the Swedish political party, The Liberals. Their ideologies are things like
- Muslims bad
- Immigrants bad
- We should collaborate with the Nazi party
- We should monitor citizens private communication
- Criminals should receive harsher punishments
They’re socially very conservative, and historically have been economically liberal. There are weird outliers however, like the other year when they almost tore themselves apart debating the legal nuances around incest.
In america, the words are essentially synonomous to the general public.
Hear me out here, maybe, the words mean slightly different things based on the cultural associations with those words?
I don’t disagree that they are used differently in Europe and the rest of the world, but those terms have regionally unique meanings in the US.
Liberal here means more pro-business/capitalism. It doesn’t inherently mean pro-unregulated capitalism though, nor pro-big corporations/billionaires.
Leftist here means supports left leaning policies. That can range quite a bit, and likely is more left-of-center.
I think your breakdown is an accurate representation of politics regardless. Lots of people saying they want this or that, but not a ton of action actually going forward to change things. Yet alone there even being big incentives for those in power to actually implement those changes.
To me, it feels like positive change has to happen locally and at a state level, since people don’t necessarily care to want what they are unfamiliar with.
The difference is liberals believe in a system of laws that can be tweaked and perfected for the greatest good but never fundamentally changed, leftists believe in change
Of course you’re over there arguing over less hours or not, we’re over here arguing if we should still have science
We don’t have a functioning system to tweak
Liberals: Fuck all. We can’t be sure employees don’t want this too. Besides, someone will sort it out soon, they always do.
Leftists: I’ll donate a union $5 so I can tell my friends I’m left.
The most real understanding of our political world tbh.
My experience has more been along the lines of. 5 people are voting:
1 votes to make things better
2 don’t vote
2 vote to make things worse even for themselvesI tried watching some right wing stuff and some interviews with right wing voters to see if there was a perspective I’m missing but often it was literally ‘I know there’s no evidence for this but I believe it anyway’.
From my understanding, they would love those helpful things, but as soon as they hear the person they dislike might be helped or benefit it makes their blood boil because they hate that guy. I believe this is the crux of some of the issues.
This is what makes even the first part of this post happen where liberals try to negotiate, they offer a “okay what about if the person works 40 hours” and the answer they get back is still a “NO”.
I do think it’s possible to convince these people, but you really have to sell it as “there is the billionaires and then the rest of us who are hard working people”. Senator Bernie Sanders has had success in West Virginia doing this, so maybe if we can get some progressive campaigns going to these small towns, listening to the concerns of the locals, and uniting these people under this common concern it can help build some bridges.
This is a bit like responding “All lives matter” when hearing about Black Lives Matter.
It’s more like “End Slavery” not “End Debt Bondage”.
One is clearly more serious than the other and it’s not the 40 hr workers.
I’m sure you can get into the anti-confederate nature of that.
Ask the top to apply their thinking to retirement. That might make them think a little deeper.
“Oh it’s different, we’ll have earned our welfare” - Liberals
Liberals: Works 40 hours a week.
Leftists: Whines 40 hours a week without working.
Oh wow, I didn’t know you were a socialist! The USSR famously had 40 hour working week and there was 0% unemployment rate. I’m glad to see more people supporting socialism <3
Conservative weirdo says what, what are you work-maxed
If taking care of a family, working, and not demanding entitlements without putting any effort into anything like the billionaires and bottom feeders makes me conservative then I guess I’m conservative, even though I’d rather see conservatives thrown into the everglades one by one.
Seriously though, what have you actually contributed to society other than Lemmy platitudes?
Ok. Brevity is the source of wit, so what were you saying again🫣🫣🫣
Why are disadvantaged people “bottom feeders”? That’s a very common conservative sentiment.
Not everybody is as strong or as able as you, and not everybody has had your privilege. I don’t need to know your story to say that and I don’t give a fuck about how hard you think you’ve had it. You at least have a functioning body, many people that you might consider “bottom feeders” don’t have that.
It would be desirable to everyone for life to be easier for everyone. Just because you may have struggled, making things better for everyone doesn’t invalidate that - no matter how much you might kick and scream at the notion of giving everybody the right to a dignified life.
The funny part is the only reason I don’t really want to work right now is because everybody fuckin sucks and makes it miserable. I’m a systems administrator and if all I had to do was computer work I would be perfectly happy I could work more than 40 hours. The problem is that 90% of my job is kissing ass to people that know literally nothing about computers desperately trying to get something halfway correct done while the retard in charge who hasn’t understood computers for over 20 years now overrides and makes a dumbass decision that is guaranteed to cause problems, trying to preemptively get ready for when it inevitably causes the exact problems I said it would cause and having to deal with the cleanup and getting blamed for it even though I at every possible meeting made it clear that this was a bad idea.
So yeah I don’t want to work , but that’s not because I’m lazy it’s because fuck other people lol
You literally just supported my point.
