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Typo posted:while this is true a lot of the time too often ideologues on both the left and the right has taken this to mean that things like "numbers" and "reality" doesn't matter and proceed to enact fringe policies which drives whatever they are managing off a cliff But the thing is it's not that people have had "enough" of experts, its the fact that experts have been so commonly surprised by things that they should have seen coming that all trust has been eroded in the idea of expertise. I mean look at banks and bankers, every time there is a run or a variety of things start going wrong it turns out the warning signs have been in place for years but the people whose job it was to pay attention didn't because they could get more money in the short term and because they are experts they will never see the inside of a prison cell. It becomes frustrating when you are significantly lower on the totem pole and you suddenly realise that the majority of people above you don't have a clue and "plans" are what people make instead of thinking.
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Feb 17, 2018 14:33
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Typo posted:Sure and that's not always a good phenomenon: you could point out that maybe it's a good thing if the electorate no longer trust bankers or finance, but then you also have people using this exact same set of logic on doctors and turn to alternative medicine. Except that that logic can be confronted by appealing to materialistic concerns (at least where I am from) by pointing out poo poo like the NHS. Having an accessibility of a service/system both reduces its mystique and increases it's power to push back against dangerous hogwash. The way to get people to trust systems is to have the system generally work in favour of all people. The way to get the system to be distrusted is to it appear to work for the benefit of a few people. C.F. How benefits are framed over here as it being for "scroungers" instead of people who are suffering. And I think the problem is more that when you position yourself as a moral exampler and the richest and best nation on the planet it is good to not have hundreds of your own citizens dying to despair and guns and poverty. You can claim to be improving or changing or what have you and people will be more considerate of your flaws, but when you posit "this is the greatest nation" you are going to get pushback from that hyperbole. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Feb 17, 2018 |
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Feb 17, 2018 20:03
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Typo posted:OTOH in 2008 alternative medicine was a 4.5 billion pound industry in the UK, an increase of 50% from 2003, and if the trend continued it's probably even greater today Yes, but we don't have poo poo like, for instance, not vaccinating our kids. I think it can be boiled down to the decline in a belief that systems actually work for the majority of the people. And if this is a common problem across various areas, perhaps it behoves us to try and combat it. And what I am saying in the second paragraph is more aimed at Owlfanciers comment about America being "top notch" on such things as Gay marriage, whilst a great many other nations have pipped it and still claiming that it is somehow a perfect victory.
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Feb 17, 2018 20:39
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I am no fan of accelerationism, but it is a bit much for an elective party to gently caress itself continually and then turn around and say to everyone criticising them that they need to get involved, but not by critiquing the party or by doing outreach outside the party, or by suggesting things the party hasn't signed off. Why has no one at a higher level in the democratic organisation actually had to give up anything in order to redeem themselves? Why is it still so hard after a loss like this for so many people at the very top of the party to actually start adopting outside ideas.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:03
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Potato Salad posted:And, what, this is reason to let the gap in the DNC widen in favor of bad Dems? Vote third party? I mean there are arguments against doing so, but why not vote for them? Especially if it is at a very local level. Alongside that, maybe get involved with other forms of political action? I mean it's not as if the DNC is trying to create a broad base outside of simply being "a party you vote for every so often".
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Feb 27, 2018 21:44
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If it is "winnable" the question then becomes what are you winning it for. I think part of the problem is that Democrats only ever define themselves as antithesis to Republicans. Just pointing at something and going "I am not that" doesn't work to engage people unless the "that" is particularly bad and people have felt it. Otherwise it is just "So what if you are not that, it's not making my life any worse, and how are you different?" Also as a quick thing Potato Salad, if the democrats lose the next presidential campaign would you be willing to see the advantage in whole sale root and branch reform of the party?
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Feb 27, 2018 22:19
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Potato Salad posted:Reform by who, the guys who didn't turn out? Yes. If you feel that people who haven't put in the time and energy that you have don't deserve to have as much of a say in how the party is supposed to be run then you aren't trying to build anything, you are trying to justify time to yourself. Functionally if people don't engage with the democrats because they have lost hope, that isn't on them it's on the systematic failure of the party itself.
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Feb 27, 2018 22:36
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Potato Salad posted:I'm wondering if reading this aloud would help you out. Your arguing this from the point of view of a member of the democrats, you want to get more people into the party in order to push it more towards what you want, and that is admirable, but ultimately the best way of appealing outside of what you already have is going to have to rely on people in elections. People who are not part of the democratic party. You want progressives to do the hard work, to get in place and run candidates and so on, and absolve the larger structure of the democrats of problems through this method. Unfortunately the frequently undemocratic nature of the primaries and the obvious bias in some sections of the party apparatus discourages people from taking part and I can't blame people for doing so. Ultimately the argument is whether the democrats deserve to have people try and help them. Can you make that argument, and can you make it convincingly?
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Feb 27, 2018 22:58
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Potato Salad posted:You're talking about Dems deserving stuff....or something. I'm talking about mowing them over. What I am trying to argue, as best I can, is that you want to reform the democratic establishment. What a lot of people, not unjustifiably, want to do is to knock it down. Why is one better than the other on a moral and practical level.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:06
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What are you arguing my dude? Your calling out people like Vital who are doing exactly what you do with more cynicism about it? Like, what the heck are you even arguing, can you lay out terms of some sort?
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Feb 27, 2018 23:09
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Potato Salad posted:You sit in this proverbial armchair, waving your hands around talking about invisible forces and billionaires controlling the political weather. The reality is far more mundane than this -- status quo Democrats listen to moneyed interests far more than they listen to any kind of economic or social progressive input. None of these people have mind control devices. The fluoridation in your water does not control your society. The are detestable, highly greedy, comfortable fuckos who are as likely to ratfuck an up-down rules vote as we are to suspending the 2018 elections. Well I am not in the USA, but I have to say. This is the most stupid take you could possibly make. "You all sit there doing nothing whilst I go out and help" may be personally edifying, but the fact that a variety of people appear to be doing what you did and are finding fault with the institution as it currently exists is apparently making you call everyone who doesn't both act AND think like you "not doing enough". The operative question is, why should people try and reform a party that is only going to do stuff like but Perez on the ticket solely so that progressives did not have an instant win. Does that sound like the sort of action that will encourage people to engage more, or is it that people will just see the party as a more impoverished bunch of ratfucking dicks? It is not ridiculous to talk about /point at all of the billionaires who have the democrats on call and then say "why is this worth reform, why not just start again?" You seem to be arguing more to make yourself feel better about getting involved and justify yourself when people, quite mildly, call you out on being really really bad at convincing people. Potato Salad posted:If you want to discount Ellison like Viral suggested we abandon Bernie, we're hosed and your energy spent fighting for progress is better spent in another country. We cannot fix this loving wage slavery society without earnest, popular stepping stones. You'll get crushed every time before making yet another Bad Dems thread that toes the line on the morality of functionally giving up. 1) Your confusing Vitalsigns with someone else. Self unaware I think. 2) Would you demand the same from everyone, everywhere? Leaving and going to another country I mean, because if you are wanting to be pragmatic, you are going about this the wrong way. 3) You are talking to people Who do vote in the primaries you fool. If you are so keen on not being "always online twice" try convincing people outside in the real world. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 21:46
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Potato Salad posted:For the part of your post that I didn't quote, tearing down the DNC is starting again. A third party will take further than a decade to build, and FYI that's being built right now in the DSA. We're running candidates as Dems for a reason. Maybe ask yourself why that is, instead of theorizing on a "gently caress it 3rd party only" that no serious movement is actually treading. And yet the DNC is still in the hands of the people who hosed it. Why is your method better if it does not give even the appearance of change? I would agree with you, a third party would take a very long time to build up and make work. However, that means it behoves the democrats to set out a moral and practical reason why people should not attempt to do so. If you just say "well it won't work/ it'll be hard" then I can respond with "well it might be, but perhaps it needs doing anyway". Also, to say that "no serious movement is trending" is partially because there are still people who believe in the system, but that can and will decrease if the democrats have yet another time in governance during which they continue to try and gut both themselves and their base. 1) Fair enough, but at the same time I have seen Vital say that they voted Bernie. That is lesser of two evils to them, its just that not everyone has the same moral calculus and you need to make a case for why they should follow yours. 2) Why do you think people aren't allowed to be unhappy or despairing. Why can't people gesture at something and go "shits hosed" even as they try and fix it. "urgh, why can't you be more positive" is just demented. Let people do the work and complain whilst they do it. Or try and persuade others why they should bother being engaged. Don't just go "I am more positive about the future, therefore I am better than you at politics".
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Mar 3, 2018 22:19
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Potato Salad posted:Josef, I get your "these posters vote in primaries" frustration, but understand (a) this is a thread on lesser evil voting and (b) that amplifying the notion that the DNC can't be hijacked is going to splash into diminished participation overall. I'm going to cite the failure of the"turn on, tune in, drop out" counterculture "movement" that yielded majority to Silent Majority totalitarianism that's dragged progress backwards since the seventies. Or it could be that you can blame the existing power structure more than blaming any individuals that are part of it. Perhaps this is where the disagreement is. You appear to be, essentially, blaming people for going "gently caress this". Maybe people are just trying to live and suddenly just because they haven't paid attention to something they thought wasn't important your now saying that it's "Your fault for not listening". Yeah, maybe it is, but it helps nothing. Let people have despair if they are doing what you need them to. Don't force people to smile when they have to make choices they personally don't like but feel like they need to do, it is terrifyingly creepy to me to want people to be happy in doing this sort of thing.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:28
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Potato Salad posted:0) I'm going to take a cheap, but I argue important, step of asking again for your take on why Social Dems, DSA, and communist candidates are going to the polls as Dem candidates. 0) Because it is the only way to change things locally, but nationally the vast amount of problems come from the way that "the party" sits on people it doesn't like in order to make things better for itself and it's backers. Also, I am glad of that, but if (as other people are mentioning) people keep getting ratfucked in primaries and then still asked to vote for people that don't hold their views? I think they are morally okay to go "no". Obviously it is up to the individual, but I don't begrudge people that. 1) I suspect it is more a method of critiquing being happy with table scraps as it were. Why be happy with Bernie, he may have done better, but you guys would still have a lot of the same problems. The reforming vs the revolutionary problem is a powerful one and if you believe in the first you need to argue it well. 2) Prove it. I mean, seriously you don't see how pointing at bad-dems and going "gently caress this person" may actually improve things? Would you vote for a dem even if they were basically blue republicans? Because that is how some people feel about some candidates and they have every right to. Potato Salad posted:Happy nothing, I'm in loving Georgia and the only actual victory we had was beating back Norwood by supporting a piece of poo poo from the current mayoral office. I'd have not lifted a finger against Norwood after Vincent Fort lost the jungle, expect Norwood had to then go and whip out the old dogwhistles and hand them out to local law enforcement to peddle. Then why are you so cross about other people being less hopeful if they are doing it? I don't understand why this is so important to you.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:51
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Potato Salad posted:Hey look, the "Summon ViralSpiral" pentagram on my floor worked. Mate I would really like to hear your response to Ytlaya here, they are being both extraordinarily nice and super clear with their questioning and framing of issues and it seems as if your just getting cross at them for doing that. I think going "vote Dem if it seems like the right thing to do" is a good idea. I don't think "go blue team" is. I mean I'd have difficulty voting for a lot of the MP's that are on Labours side in the general election over here and they have significantly less wiggle room to gently caress about.
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Mar 4, 2018 09:41
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Potato Salad posted:I haven't responded to Yalta because we're largely in agreement; she's somehow reading into my posts that I'm saying stuff that I'm not. Ylata is always mega polite, but s/he has an enumerated set of profiles s/he wants to stuff you into and thus repeatedly fails to accept that you agree on 80% of the content of the otherwise polite effortposts. Note from a few pages back the assumption that I must care more about social problems than economic problems. Ylata and I have had that fist fight before, where it's assumed any pushback on a leftist poster means you're a centrist. I think the bolded portion may well be a description of yourself. You seem to be extremely hostile to everyone who isn't acting as you deem they should. From having read your posts it appears that a lot of people are getting confused with what you are actually calling for. It is constantly shrouded by you going "you need to get out and vote in the primaries, and support these candidates and do etc", which most people who are in this thread are doing and then you go "but not with that attitude". Your argumentation seems more based on what you think people are saying than what they are, and some are doing the same to you, but it always seems that you don't lay out what you think people should be doing, and why they should be doing it, clearly. It's frustrating. Potato Salad posted:Note above that I'm in broad agreement with her, but because I push back on conspiratorial thinking as a valid factor in Two Evils voting decisions, the Ylata post is offering "I agreed with x, however I'm disagreeing about Y" sentences where Y is a centrist position I haven't offered or defended. How is it any more frustrating than you saying "we are in an information war", people are providing examples and you are going "but those don't count" instead of saying "okay, yes but etc etc". Your not providing evidence to persuade people, and I would love to be persuaded that centrists aren't going to break this poo poo down. Potato Salad posted:What is this "Go Team Blue" horseshit? I'd have let Lance-Bottoms gently caress herself and burn had Norwood not trained out to be a Daughters of the Confederacy style dogwhistling, Blue Lives Matter force of reactionary race baiting, whitey-angering evil. Bottoms, Reed, and their blue mayoral office can go to hell, except for when a greater hell awaits us on the wings of the opponent candidate. That is your calculus, a lot of people are looking at stuff like this, especially at a local level, and end up going "well why bother with these fucks, wait for them to fail then come in and try something else". Is that so hard to understand or empathise with? Potato Salad posted:So, something I've noticed is that VitalSigns posts a lot in here despite having voted Clinton per the trolley problem, and he's done so because he has real, personal threats to his well being otherwise. That's basically the premise of the thread, acknowledged. Wew lads. Can you go two minutes without being smug about people having different calculations to you even when they are doing what you want? Jesus Christ.
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Mar 4, 2018 12:59
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I would personally say I agree much more with the first point (I can see the attraction of wanting to change a large body that has resources at it's disposal) but disagree with the second. However I am unsure to what extent PotatoSalad is arguing the second one and would appreciate clarification on that score.
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Mar 4, 2018 13:34
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Potato Salad posted:Which is the second one The secondary point of "vote dems no matter what". I wanted to know your exact reasoning preferably with examples.
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Mar 4, 2018 15:47
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Potato Salad posted:"D no matter what" is stupid and not something I'd recommend. Of course, that's not going to stop you from reading that into my posts. Well good. I am glad to see that. Would you also accept that it is possible, even necessary, that some people have different "red lines" that they are unwilling to cross to vote for people?
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Mar 4, 2018 18:13
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Potato Salad posted:Oh no, I'm irritated and annoyed in a thread. So people aren't allowed to be disengaged and hurt in a thread, but ARE allowed to be belittling and annoyed? The gently caress? I am not even in your country and you are coming across as grotesquely entitled.
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Mar 4, 2018 22:43
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Potato Salad posted:This has moved beyond Lesser Evils voting pages ago and has basically crawled into a discussion on the merits of feeling frustration. Because lesser evilism encourages disengagement and a lack of direct rewards has lead to this moment and rather than addressing those people as people who have been hurt by the failure of a system you are treating them individually as "woke dickheads". Is this the sort of thing you intend to say to people when you go door to door trying to get people involved "Field trip: I look forward to passing your ideas around at my next Atlanta DSA meeting as an example of the kind of gymnastics we're up against." This is a discussion about how difficult it can be to want to reform things because poo poo is staying hosed up and you, a motivated person, are essentially going around saying "cheer up you fucks". It's incredible in that it stretches credulity!
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Mar 4, 2018 22:53
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Potato Salad posted:Right now I'm discouraged by progressive prospects in GA. And posting for the laughingstock benefit of Something Awful lip service lefties who I can see plain as day are toying around in here, USPOL, and in the Succ Zone with ways to morally justify dropping out. All this sounds like is "I did it, why can't you?" People are doing the work and you see fit to accuse them of wanting to drop out based on the, not entirely unfair, opinion that the Dems suck for continually being poo poo at their jobs. Instead of blaming the Dems you blame people put off by them. Sure they may well be looking to disengage, but your role if you want to take it up is to convince them otherwise, not hold yourself up as a moral exemplar of what they "should" do. Alongside that, that doesn't answer the question. Why do you think people should vote lesser when everyone here, who could, did their duty and voted? What is "MIC"? And I disagree based on what I have seen of US politics, it seems to be basically a lot of establishment people running around screaming and any attempt to put something better in place getting hosed over by the inbuilt systemic problems of the DNC and having a lot of structural inertia on side. I mean getting someone like Corbyn was a shoot the loving moon option for us and there is still a crap tonne of resistance against him. Potato Salad posted:Somehow you're not able to concieve of a progressive movement that is optimistic about taking over a national party. That, frankly, relays to me that you aren't participating irl, because that's the irl gameplan. Not really if, and it's a big if, people keep voting for lovely Dems anyway. That is the argument Cerebral was making unless I really miss my guess. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Mar 5, 2018 |
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Mar 5, 2018 00:09
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Potato Salad posted:I've blamed anyone but the Dems for 2016? No, but you are blaming people for being put off by them. Potato Salad posted:Sir, this is not a doorstep. Everywhere is a doorstep if your brave enough. Why not try and convince here as much as outside of this location. Potato Salad posted:Good question. I'm not really able to answer it, because people itt largely did vote lesser of two evils. Their reasons are their own. Then acquire one. Potato Salad posted:You said it yourself, you're not in the US. I didn't get to canvas in VA and AL last year, but having finally had a chance to meet with some AL ground game organizers, maybe my message to you is that you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. Maybe, but from what I have seen from the selection process of the Dems, they are really really bad at politics. I mean look at this whole DREAMERS thing going on atm. Can you get rid of all of those arseholes? Potato Salad posted:My read is that Corbyn is another rare, highly-charismatic star like Obama. He's going to meet resistance as he represents anathema to his Tory and establishment opponents. This is kinda out of scope. You've never seen him talk. He is not as bad as Atlee, but he is sure as hell not a great public speaker. Potato Salad posted:I mean, believe either the messaging of the DSA that change can happen, or listen to Cerebral Bore's notion that change happens more quickly when you cede majority to your moral antitheses and let a party closer to the left slooooowly crawl leftward. I can't make your mind up for you. Or you believe that change can happen, but requiring people to go out and vote Baddem because the Republican is worse is both a losing tactical decision (because people disengage if they get it) and a strategic one (because then baddem can continue being bad and nothing can stop them). Potato Salad posted:You need to forgive my take that you're already convinced that Internet Activist Cerebral Bore is correct on this front; maybe just quit sealioning. It's not Sealioning, it's getting clarification. You appear to be refusing to be drawn on issues such as "when is a Bad Democrat bad enough to not be worth voting for even if the Republican gets in"? Or "If Bad Democrat doesn't get in one election and then at subsequent election Good Democrat gets in and beats Republican, is that not better overall than letting Bad Democrat get in initially and just spend time loving things up?" Personally, from an outsiders perspective it would be a difficult moral choice and we can't know the future, so I would possibly vote bad democrat anyway. But that isn't for us to decide. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Mar 5, 2018 |
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Mar 5, 2018 00:34
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Potato Salad posted:I'm actually pretty okay with your above points. I'm not inherently at odds with them, even if you can't somehow accept that because it breaks your brain I am not one of the people calling you out for being "centerist" or what have you. I'm just pointing out that you are basing this all in personalising a situation that does not require it.
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Mar 5, 2018 01:46
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Potato Salad posted:Another place for people who get shredded in higher traffic threads to say their piece under the radar without danger of getting dunked yet again. Oh Snapple! posted:Who the gently caress cares if he does, democrats shouldn't be supporting it. This is kind of the point Potato. I know you don't generally support these sorts of policies, so can you provide a good reason as to why poo poo like this should not be called out as a "call to action" for the people affected.
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Mar 6, 2018 19:42
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WampaLord posted:Except for, of course, all of the recent major news about how they're not letting leftists win primaries. What happened?
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May 1, 2018 00:37
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Potato Salad posted:gently caress I mean this should prove that the Dems need a real kick in the pants.
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May 5, 2018 21:20
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