Progressive Peanut Gallery: I plan to transform my town into a socialist utopia

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Progressive Peanut Gallery: I plan to transform my town into a socialist utopia

«‹›3 »

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

We need more people! More! Challenge every seat!! More challengers! We need every moderate or conservative or merely corrupt democrat to be loving afraid!!

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 01:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 13:59

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Al! posted:

How are we going to face the biggest threat to progressivism today: identity politics? And how are we going to roll back the so-called "gains" these hijackers have made in the last few years?

Inclusivity and attentiveness to their issues, while keeping our eyes on the prize imo

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 01:18

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Im wondering if my local elections have reached their deadlines and if just putting my name on a ballot for city council or boe would make me competitive

the town is tiny so "putting your name on the ballot" is seriously possible. A couple miles from here my grandpa won an elected seat he wasn't running for by write-in~

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 01:23

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

For real though if it's not too late and you want to make a difference, local positions are not full-time and if you live in a small town, of ~2000 or something, you stand a chance of winning or disrupting an election by simply adding your name to the ballot and otherwise doing zero campaigning :v:

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 01:27

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

I posted something to that reddit that I will share here, it's not written well, and needs at least a re-write for clarity, but I'm sleep deprived, and the point carries. You can win local elections in 3/4 digit population towns by basically being on the ballot and doing some door knocking.

quote:

I have some family who did local politics. A grandfather who served on city council and later mayor in a DFW town in the 90s and early 2000's. My other grandfather also served short terms in the 70s in podunk towns.
I inquired into running for mayor some years after my grandpa because the town had some problems and it was extremely evident to everyone involved that I could have probably taken a seat on name recognition alone, due to a couple of facts: Namely low turnout for local elections, and the fact that the people who were voting in the 90s and 2000s were pretty much the same people who still voted.
In my experience, if you live in a large town, you need backing and capital. You can run a ground campaign and get yoru name on the ballot, and to some degree you may snatch votes, but realistically you're not going to upstart your way into a Dallas board of education seat, or the mayorship, by yourself. That said, if you live small towns, where population is measured in three or four digits, it's much easier.
Keep in mind party affiliation matters very little in small towns. My grandfather is a lifelong republican but as a mayor you would think he was a Berniecrat objectively looking at his actions. Towns and counties have fundamentally different needs than states and the country. You shouldn't run on a political platform locally like you would for a state or federal election. Nobody really cares how you feel about UHC if you're running for city council so there's no reason to alienate voters with it! You're not running for a position where you can influence that policy!
Small towns are where the number game gets funky due to low turnout. My grandpa as mayor would run campaigns that would top out around $40,000 if he recieved that much in contributions. This was for signs, knocking on doors, leaflets, that sort of thing. I know because I used to help him campaign. Not much but I saw the bulk of what was done for voter outreach.
The thing is, you didn't need to spend that money, and for a couple of terms his opponents often did not spend much or any substantial amount of money running, because you're practically guaranteed a number of votes by being on the ballot, simply based on people not liking your opposition, or the position of your name on the ballot. Many voters are low-information at this level too, because the only way anybody knows candidates is 1. personally, 2. through campaigning 3. not at all. It's literally a crapshoot sometimes. Name recognition isn't always a good thing, especially if the town is going through a trouble spot, merely being on the ballot can guarantee your ascent. In a place like texas, we need people sneaking into the small towns city councils and election boards. You can seriously disrupt local politics by putting your name on the ballot and doing nothing else. If you knock on doors too, you can actually win.
Local positions are usually not full-time affairs. Benig a mayor will consume a lot of time, but a position on an education board or being a council-member will obligate you to attend a couple of meetings a month maybe. It's different town to town, but if you can afford that minor commitment and you want to change things- I want to impress how easy it is to disrupt the status quo! Print out the paperwork, file it, and run for office! It's easy and YOU can make a difference!

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 02:00

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Ungas that thread and move it to CCCC

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 02:18

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

I used to whine about identity politics a lot and honestly what has given me pause is how Bernie Sanders has handled the issue.

Believe me I still lament the theoretical single-issue identity politics person who may exist somewhere up the food chain making GBS threads up a larger movement for the sake of their own pet issue, but I'm not sure this actually exists much as I and others sometimes think it does. I think there are bigger fish to fry since it's reasonably easy to integrate the politics of identity into a larger progressive movement and there are much more malevolent forces that actively work to undermine progressive politics and I would rather focus on that than being an rear end in a top hat because somebody is trying to be a part of something while having needs unique to them and people like them.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 09:49

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Sunscreen is essential for some people. Like me. I keep that poo poo in my car. My skin is insanely fair. The only time I had any color was after a week on the Florida coast, and I sunburned despite basically bathing myself in water resistant sunscreen, and the sunburns weren't the worst I ever had, in terms of blistering, but in terms of the time it took to heal, the time it was painful to exist, it was very rough.

In Texas, unless it's very cloudy and winter, I can't work outside without burning. If I didn't i would basically always be in pain and probably have skin cancer by now.

I know i'm a freak of nature but just based on what the sun does to my skin I could only advocate people be smart and wear sunscreen because even if I readily show more visible sun damage, that doesn't mean similar poo poo isn't going down in your body at the microscopic/molecular level.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 12:59

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Way too many social issues have related if not causative economic factors, so to be merely socially progressive doesn't compute for me. To me, being socially permissive and/or accepting while also having apathetic or rear end-backwards attitudes about the economy already has a label, it's called 'libertarianism'.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 14:38

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

YOU A loving HAT posted:

Ah, back in the biz

wait

can we still Hail Satan in here?

Please don't.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 15:00

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Classic Comrade posted:

hemophilia you should get one of those word blocker/filter thingies, and make it so 'satan' is changed to like... 'satin' or something

That wouldn't help, because I would still know someone was hailing the dark lord satan

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 15:03

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

The weird thing is it doesn't take very much to draw a line from banking hegemony to certain kinds of discrimination, like you know securing mortgages, or the housing crisis from you know 8 years ago having lots of minorities and non-minority but none the less low income families caught in the loving crossfire. It's really weird.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 15:31

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

NumberLast posted:

Banking hegemony leads to unscrupulous practices, which predate the habitually marginalized which (surprise!) tend to be racial minorities.

Two or three degrees of separation, depending on how you count it.

But the more important point is you shouldn't have to bring it 'back to racism.' Yes, institutional racism is a problem but using it as obfuscation to defend a practice that hurts a different group (and in this case one that tends to encompass the group used as obfuscation) isn't just wrong, it's pretty dumb.

When this happened, nobody should have been lauding her because you can swat that horse-poo poo down with a soundbyte's worth of words. That's my main point. It's not complicated or convoluted, it's so offensive I can only assume people were blindsided by the audacity of it.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 15:47

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

If you were to make a 'test' to identify good progressive candidates what kind of positive traits would define that term, and by what negative traits wouldyou idenitify 'crazies' and national socialists and poo poo like that

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 16:25

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

NumberLast posted:

That's a fantastic question and I have no idea

I'm sure you have ideas in your head and i'm thinking you should write them out.

A Here's one:

- shifting tax burden off the low and middle class. At the state level, abolition or reduction of regressive taxation, At the federal level redefining tax brackets, closing loopholes, outlawing certain kinds of economic activity.

Tax burden is a big deal, and if you have someone riding on progressive momentum yet they seem fairly disinterested in who has to pay the bills, that's a big loving red flag.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 16:33

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Like you can use the bernie platform as a positive template but he isn't perfect and the ultimate goal is to make an easy method to screen progressive candidates. Like if you could come up with 5-10 points to test a candidate on while looking for a similar number of red flags you'd have a decent test to screen a crowd-sourced item like that reddit candidate sheet. Obviously you can tear a candidate down on an individual basis but these guys may be popping up in a lot of districts in a lot of places, and if names start getting thrown around it'll always be handy to have a reliable sheet of tenets and red flags to expect and look for.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 16:37

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Breadallelogram posted:

this too, but I agree with Goetta that comparing to Bernie's platform is a good place to start

Like I said, I think that's a good positive template but i'd still want to take a crack to boiling his platform down into a few ideas, and it's not really a good 'negative' template. A Bernie litmus test is fine until you get a candidate who is 9/10 of a bernie sanders up to the point he starts advocating eugenics and racial purity.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 16:42

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

In city and county elections, the type of issues you face and the powers you have, being 'progressive' nearly doesn't matter. Board Of Education is the most political position in Texas that's below the state level. It's the nature of a city's issues. My grandfather is a lifelong republican in the old school sense but if you saw what he did as mayor you would suspect a progressive.

The exception is, school board, where you can influence curriculum and where money goes, it's less powerful at the local level than it ever has been but it's still very important and basically the only time you should be treating a local candidate lie a state or federal candidate

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 17:06

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Seriously if you get into your local elections and you find somebody running for a council seat or mayor and they push a typical state or national agenda you should not vote for them no matter how clearly they believe and agree with all the things you believe and agree with. the council doens't need abortion debates they need people who are willing to raise and appropriate money to fix potholes or pave a road.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 17:14

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

a primate posted:

I think Centre-left candidates love talking about social issues because it doesn't cost any money to implement. So they get to appear progressive while being a *~fiscal conservative

Pretty much. For example, bathroom bills are bogus but I wish we could fight bathroom bills and also compel insurance companies to cover HRT and SRS, or better yet, abolish private insurance and nationalize healthcare but :qqsay:

thats too hard and think about the rights of businesses too

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 17:46

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Goetta posted:

.
Do in the Dem thread

Pass

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 18:02

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Nuclear power owns but non-plutonium generating reactors should be deployed. Surely we have enough plutonium to end the world several times over, and a few alien worlds for good measure. A major problem with nuclear power is the waste and we need reactors that produce as little as possible. Ideally you have something with non-toxic or managable waste products. Something that with maybe one or two more processes is basically inert and non-toxic forever. I don't know if that's possible but that's the pie in the sky goal imo

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 23:14

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

That rise in hydro is the destructive kind right? I know there have been advancements in tidal power plants but I can't imagine that accounts for the growth. I bet the growth is mostly china drowning peasants and completely disrupting ecosystems to meet power demands

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 23:51

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Error 404 posted:

Thorium, yo.

I'm thinking of thorium molten salt reactors when i bring this stuff up but I have no idea if the information I have about it is bunk or not so I refrain from offering specific solutions. If that stuff works as I understand it to, in an age where we're really trying not to build nukes, it seems like a super good idea.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 04:09

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

zephyr teachout is a loving excellent name

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 23:44

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Classic Comrade posted:

excuse me it's zephyr RAIN teachout

lmfao she must have the hippiest parents ever in existence like srsly that's basically 'river/rain/summer phoenix' level hippie.

her wikipedia says her parents are Vermont-area academics so yeah, but good hippies and not abusive pedo sex cult hippies.

# ¿ May 1, 2016 00:54

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Someone gave progressives a bunch of guns (bernie) and now the meek shall inherit the earth motherfucker

# ¿ May 1, 2016 01:23

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Thorium Reactor press release: Harnessing the power of the Gods and electricity, solving the energy crisis. Morons think of the avengers and tony stark and poo poo instead of fission reactions

# ¿ May 1, 2016 02:14

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

MIGF has spells where its very tempting to ignore him but most of the time he's fine. He's got different values or at least his gimmick does but usually he's a lot better than the other old thread trolls.

# ¿ May 1, 2016 05:29

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

the social liberty-union party is a bunch of splitters.

# ¿ May 1, 2016 16:14

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

i'm 26 and a half. Very close.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 10:20

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Hillary Clinton is Lucile Bluth

# ¿ May 2, 2016 13:49

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

My Imaginary GF posted:

Audit all the student donors to Sanders to ensure federal funds are not being misused.

i would not vote for you

# ¿ May 2, 2016 18:06

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

NumberLast posted:

Now I'm completely lost

There is a really old SA meme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E0ot9iJm_k

There is more context but you don't really need it

# ¿ May 2, 2016 19:17

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

So my aim by asking people to make a criteria to filter candidates is so that people have a good idea of what to look for in a 'berniecrat'/new progressive/whatever you want to call what's goin on right now.

I think it's important to also distill it down to essential markers because a given candidate is probably not going to be a perfect progressive. A progressive running in Texas may give an order of a magnitude less of a gently caress about the environment than one out of california. Likewise about guns. They may still otherwise be an excellent candidate.

Big red-flags are anti-choice stances, apologia for big business, aversion to taxes, hostility/aversion to LGBTQ issues, that sort of thing.

The more i've thought on it, a list of essential red-flags is a better idea than a model theoretical candidate

# ¿ May 2, 2016 19:37

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

Classic Comrade posted:

ya cause like for example right now in the democratic party you have dems in the south who are basically DINOs. ex: Louisiana dems pushing abortion restriction bills, North Carolina dems voting for anti-trans bills.

so where do we draw the line on that? what are acceptable regional compromises (being anti-lgbtq and being anti-choice are not examples of those)?

I would say the largest leeway needs to be for attitudes about guns. Not alienating southerners over guns is a big deal and I don't think coast liberals really appreciate that a lot of people are tied up on that poo poo who otherwise are not conservative.

A distant second is the environment. Climate change denial is outright a no-no but priority-wise, it can be allowed to be lower.

LGBTQ/Women's bodily autonomy stuff is pretty inflexible

# ¿ May 2, 2016 19:51

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

NumberLast posted:

I disagree on this point in the sense that we're kind of out of time already. We're on the '+xx:xx' part of the countdown.

I just want to get to a point where we can have a debate about it and I don't think excluding people for that issue is smart since debating a more moderate progressive is way better than what we have now, dealing with the inaction of corporate democrats and the head-in-sand tactics of republicans.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 19:57

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

NumberLast posted:

So basically you want to establish a baseline of progressive politics that doesn't include immediate action on reversing climate change.

I...Understand what you're saying but if people buying elections is your house being on fire, climate change is the dam bursting a few miles down the road. It doesn't seem like a problem when we're looking at the fire, but it's going to kill us soon no matter where we go.

I see where you're coming from but we've been screaming that the house is on fire and the dam's gonna burst for a while now and I see a chance to get people to take the claims seriously but I also don't want to alienate people who are more amenable to addressing it than what we currently have, due to a lack of purity.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:10

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

SneakyFrog posted:

just my 2 cents but hitler we had this talk already and you arent allowed to talk about purity at all.

i know a thing or 2 about purity that you don't dude let the experts talk.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 13:59

Riot Bimbo: Dec 28, 2006

My Imaginary GF posted:

Won't the fire be taken care of when the dam bursts? Sounds like you're mad that folk are listening to you about the house being on fire, and the fire is gonna be solved when the levy breaks.

This isn't a super flexible metaphor but I mainly want to make sure a diverse array of progressive minded people can be identified and I feel like guns and the environment gently caress up a lot of people who might otherwise support progressives and nothing is really gained by making principled stands for these issues

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Progressive Peanut Gallery: I plan to transform my town into a socialist utopia

«‹›3 »