But bad systems create the incentives. Chalking it up to “bad people doing bad things” is a shallow analysis that does nothing to address the underlying problem. If you replaced all the “bad people” with “good people” you would see the same problems re-emerge due to the perverse incentives created by the profit motive.
On Lemmy, it’s widely recognized that the Dem party is fucked up, but as seen in this very comment section, there are numerous people who still think outright not voting when literal fucking Nazis are running against the anti-fascist coalition candidate is not only fine, but commendable and even morally necessary.
One drum clearly needs beat here more than the other.
You beating this particular drum is not helping and will never change non-voters’ minds. The message of “you have to vote for us to stop the fascists and that’s the only thing that matters” didn’t work on most people before the election and it isn’t going to work now just because you’re repeating it more angrily this time. Yes, it sucks, but that’s the reality and you need to come to terms with it.
I understand the anger; I voted for harm reduction myself and am just as distraught that it didn’t succeed, but instead of doom spiraling and angrily lashing out at non-voters I am focused on identifying and fixing the problem. People didn’t vote for Democrats in large enough numbers to stop fascism, and the reason is that they are disappointed in and uninspired by Democratic leadership. The solution then is not to try and browbeat them into voting, it’s to replace the leadership.
The solution is in the primaries, and this is where “purity politics” as you call it is necessary. Railing against “purity politics” in primaries only serves to perpetuate the status quo that led to this defeat in the first place.
Or they’re bi. I grew up ultra religious and the choice explanation made more sense to me because I had both homo and hetero urges, and I assumed it was the same for everyone (I thought of people who claimed otherwise as self-righteous). In my mind at the time homosexual urges were just part of people’s sinful nature they had to overcome. The whole thing only seems so incoherent from an outside perspective, which I was fortunately able to arrive at after experiencing the world more.
This exactly. The only reason it even works at all is because they are building on top of an already functioning imperial system. Fascists are like prions emerging from within and taking over a far more competent - and more subtly evil - host, and making it lash out violently while melting its brain into goo. Even if it is not rooted out it’s still doomed to kill its host and by extension, itself.
You’re using an example right now.
I don’t need to present a perfect alternative for my critique of Western Democracy to be valid. Critique is the means by which we can improve upon what already exists. Some short-term solutions could be to overturn citizens united and end legalized corporate lobbying, introduce voting reforms such as abolishing the electoral college and switching from first past the post to ranked choice or star voting, or expanding direct democratic programs like ballot initiatives. All of these have the effect of minimizing the influence of capital and maximizing the influence of people on the political process.
Longer term solutions involve bottom-up organization of things like mutual aid, unions of various types, decentralized infrastructure, community-run libraries (and not just for books), community gardens, etc. These kinds of dual-power structures always start small but have outsized positive effects on the communities they form in. If they were allowed to grow unhindered they would eventually grow together and easily supercede the top-down power structures that pervade our lives today, which is why they end up being suppressed or co-opted by the same.
A good example of how this occurs is how despite the internet providing a way to collect and distribute all the knowledge on earth for free to everyone on earth (the greatest library in all of human history), powerful corporations - with the help of governments around the world - unnecessarily spend vast amounts of wealth and resources to restrict the free exchange of ideas along socioeconomic lines.
It points out the contradiction of being in a supposedly free Western Democracy but still being totally at the mercy of others. It isn’t necessarily that Western Democracy is the cause, but that it fails to address these problems.
My paychecks from the CCP must be getting lost in the mail.
That’s some pretty wild conspiratorial thinking, do you actually have proof or just some anecdotes about people disagreeing with you?
I wish for once I could just have a civil conversation about my views without people immediately jumping down my throat and accusing me of being a CCP or Russian shill, or a dirty liberal, or a filthy communist. This is what I’m talking about when I say I just end up getting shit on from all sides. Every unsavory label in the book gets stuck to me before I even get a chance to clarify my views.
The problem I see here is that you perceive this as being anti-democracy when it really isn’t. Criticism of western democracy isn’t equivalent to a total rejection of democracy in general. Capitalism renders democracies ineffectual, which is what I perceived this meme to be pointing out.
Care to elaborate on that?
As an anarchist this is me on a good day. I more often find myself in the middle getting shit on from both directions.
These aren’t just commercials with “white representation,” they are promoting eugenics. Seriously, go watch them. It’s not even subtle.