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I'm sick with the flu but I got out of bed and grabbed my laptop because I wanted to write a long form reply to this post. First, thanks for making it. I'm glad there's a thread dedicated to talking about this. The vision is a representative from each nation, each continent banding around a universal set of ideals*. A truly global movement, built upon positive leadership by these individuals and supported by the works of the movement. The point is to create a transnational body that targets local elections. There is a website, a hub that allows people from their locations to discuss with one another, organize local events and give kudos to people who are doing good works (verifiable by other users). So for example, if I am a politician and support the ideals of this movement, I can make a profile on this website. My incentive is that it gives me free exposure and I can get votes from this group. As a voter, I am incentivized to support candidates that I want to accomplish the objectives that I want while being directly connected to those candidates. Unlike traditional social networks, a large volume of users is not needed. This is because the platform functions well as a read-only system, where candidates can get free publicity by being part of the platform. Another item that I thought of is that people could Kickstart candidate's campaigns globally; opening up crowdfunding from anyone who uses the site. This way, the agenda can be furthered no matter the country. *Conservation of all life, equality before the law, accountability for one's actions. IMO. I've done a lot of thinking and I want to share a concept I've been cooking for awhile. I've talked to a lot of friends and gotten a lot of feedback but this is still very WIP. Some of this is even just coming up as I wrote it. What do you guys think? Personally, I think it's the best chance for direct action, because it focuses on the core wins: getting progressives into power.
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Dec 14, 2019 04:54
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Since everyone ignored my post I guess I'll just add this; Rebellion without purpose is anarchy in drag.
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Dec 14, 2019 13:09
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Lt. Danger posted:"I'll make the wiki" I don't get it. 
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Dec 14, 2019 14:44
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Lt. Danger posted:Not to be entirely dismissive but it seems like a low-effort sidestep of the actual work that needs to be done. Like a classic Goon Project wiki, we can act like we're contributing by making some high-level peripheral project to connect progressive campaigns while [someone else] does all the difficult, boring, ungratifying graft of building those progressive campaigns in the first place. It's also a bit of a technocratic solution (skills wallets!) to what are likely more basic, fundamental obstacles (capital and the media, boomer deathgrip, electoral corruption). That's probably why people skipped it. No, tbh I was just looking for feedback. I'm going to agree and disagree with some of what you said but don't take it as my position being intractable. So the first part, let's be real; if you want to do anything with people on the Internet it has to be something peripheral, because otherwise you're doing actual stuff on the ground. The notion that I'm even implying this website would be the target for this is understandable given the context but not my goal; I don't know any of you and I've had enough failed projects with people I do know. Let alone having it spontaneously form out of the void of a bunch of folks probably more interested in talking about action than doing it (I could go to more local elections myself!). The idea of this website is that it supports the people doing that ungratifying work of building the campaign and doing the work, with cash and with free marketing. Now you can communicate directly with people, discuss what you're doing, etc. The "Skills wallets" isn't at all what I meant nor said (didn't even use the word). What I meant was that it was more like a report card - if a candidate says they did something, then it gives a list of their accomplishments; like helping to pick up litter or sponsoring legislation. Something in an easy to read and centralized place. Now I'm all for solutions but no actionable ones have been presented thus far. It's just debates about how valid people are for talking about violent revolution. No one has proposed anything, except for me. Feel free to tear my idea down but present something to better it or otherwise lead us on a different path. Otherwise we're just eating ourselves for the pleasure of boredom. Main Paineframe posted:
I listed the incentives, please refute them. As for the finance laws, you're right, take it out or only accept donations from local communities. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 20:42
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Besides, you want to talk about useless? A bunch of people from different geographic areas (heck, different continents) talking about how much they're totally going to fight back, just like, when stuff gets bad enough. This is just mental masturbation. It's the same thing the right wing does when they talk about getting together with their militia buddies to go shoot some libs as soon as they "try to take Trump outta office!". IMO these threads are fine if all you want to do is jerk off to some fantasy riot but if you actually want to do something then talk about what you're doing locally or can do locally and how that can be amplified by getting support from outside your local area. Otherwise continue to 
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Dec 15, 2019 05:37
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I'm going to multi-quote a lot of people below so I want to say this first; my entire outlook is based on the historical fact that no empire has ever recovered once it begins to decay. Once the structure begins to truly collapse, momentum and human nature tend to keep it going along that path. That is why everything I advocate for is to build a new global organization out of the order of this one, because it is impossible to "turn back the clock" and restore the Liberal Western Empire to its former glory. Ok, begin multiquotes: Bucky Fullminster posted:First hey, my pleasure, glad it's appreciated. Responding to your paragraphs in order; - Global recognition is important to show that something is a global movement but with actual individuals it supports. It supports the idea that someone running a campaign in Hoboken, NJ is "part of something big". - I looked up electorialism; managed elections by authoritarian states? Not sure if that's what you meant because I don't see how it relates in this context. - I disagree with general strikes/disruptions. All it does is annoy people and at best puts things on hold temporarily. But it permanently makes people hate you for that time you made them late to an important meeting in their life, which frankly will always matter more to us. - I agree, Justice Democrats have a couple charismatic people on their team and it pays dividends. That's what people need. We are experiencing a dearth of real leadership - our politicians are just managers or people out for themselves. People will fall in line behind people they can believe in. The right has that, the left does not. Doesn't matter where those people come from or where they go (politics or community projects), they're just needed and we need to build the systems to support, grow and distribute that talent. The right has all media, we have the Internet because it's hard to control all of the Internet. We need to use it like a strategic resource. Bucky Fullminster posted:I don't think capitalism is going anywhere. Beefeater1980 posted:That’s probably it. Around here, people tend to treat capitalism as a directed conspiracy instead of the organically occurring one that it actually is. There’s also this desire for a violent confrontation, which is dumb as gently caress because the left doesn’t actually win that one if it happens. Ytlaya posted:There's a difference between making a moral judgement and actually intending to do something yourself. When someone says that they think a terrible criminal deserves to die, that isn't a statement of "I plan to kill that criminal." It's an assertion that the person believes the individual is bad enough to deserve that punishment. These are all related and the idea that capitalism is not going to go away is correct. Capitalism is a very natural process. It's literally evolution, but in market form. The problem that people have are with those that have accumulated unfair amounts of wealth and unfair distribution of profits between the people who work and the people who own the results of that work. This is what they need to change. You will get that problem in capitalism, communism (the government became the billionare class) or even socialism, though functioning socialism today still uses capitalism as its economic engine. Trying to deny capitalism is like trying to deny evolution. I agree that the best method for attacking this problem is to patiently build new services and work within or around the current system to shape it to the objectives of the left. Ok Ytala that makes sense re: people not actually saying they will cut people's heads off, just saying that they deserve to have that happen to them. Still that's kind of the approach of Trump, right? "Russia, if you're listening..." etc. Just my first thought. Amethyst posted:The biggest and most damaging blind spot the academic left has is that they really, truly, have not grappled with the end of the cold war. I love this post and I agree. The left is still stuck in 60s/70s era of resistance movements and is only just starting to move past the "if we protest they will have to listen" mindset. The left is also stuck in the "capitalism vs. socialism vs. communism" that was really big at the turn of the century. That sort of ideological clash IMO is out of style and out of touch with the modern world. Capitalism won. How do you make capitalism work as it nears the end result of its evolution is the next stage. Trying to turn back the clock to the early 1900s and get capitalists to fight socialists to fight communists will not go anywhere. The left also loves to ignore the practicalities of society. The point this writer(s?) makes is great; the system survives because it's logical, easy to understand and it kind of works. You need a practical, alternative that's demonstrated to be better and work to be able to show that people should switch over. Not everyone will, because there will be problems in every system or they'll have a lot invested in the previous one - and they'll fight to stop a new one from taking hold. But you need at least something beyond rhetoric ideas of "we need socialism/worker's rights/etc." to get people to move over. That's why I still hold the biggest problem with Occupy is that when it took over all those parks, they didn't try to create a new socioeconomic system within those parks. Instead, everyone looked at Occupy and was like "oh if we become like them then we'll just act like homeless people in a park" rather than "wow look at that system they're using, that looks better than what I've got going on right now". Even if it got shut down, it would have a lasting impression. Finally, I've advocated for progressives to begin staking out claims in areas that are least likely to be significantly disrupted by climate change and create Isaac Asimov style "Foundations" to protect liberalism, knowledge, etc. and get there before the right realizes there's an actual problem with the climate and tries to go there too. Bucky Fullminster posted:Well I guess that's the critical first step, hope, so yeah that's important. I have hope. Pretty pointless otherwise. Sorry if I gave you a different impression. I think we've had some bad draws the last few years, combined with some pretty deep structural stuff, but I don't think it's insurmountable. ChrisBTY posted:Thank you. I admit that I infrequently come to this corner of SA after something politically bad happens to see if people have some kind of take on the situation that will allow me to believe in a future that isn't shrouded in gloom and doom. I mean I guess there are small pieces of evidence there. On a micro level the purge of FYAD is symbolic of society slowly purging the rats from the social norm. The idea that people with progressive ideas are able to resonate with younger voters combined with the imminent threats we face as a species becoming more of a reality than an abstract might mean that the future will have more Greta Thunbergs and AOCs and fewer Mitch McConnels. And there is the rather grim idea that the 1% are cannibalizing themselves much like they did a century ago and when the economy crashes it might become their turn to yeet themselves out of the closest window. Hope is about the only thing the left has at this point, and even that is faint. Darkest before the dawn and all that though. It's still technically a winnable fight, so it'll look like we're losing until we're not. But no I don't think that we will completely stop this ship before it runs aground. Main Paineframe posted:The incentives you list are circular: politicians use the site because there's tons of voters reading it, and voters read the site because there's tons of politicians on it. There's no reason for one group to start using the site until the other group is already using the site in droves. Until that happens, you just have a half-assed social media site with no users and political words on the buttons. It seems like you think politicians will be the ones to take the first step for the sake of "exposure", but Twitter gets them a gajillion times more exposure than PoliticsBook ever will. The politician can put up their message. People can read it on that page or not or interact with that person or not. But simply putting it on the page doesn't require there to be a lot of people, and it doesn't require a lot of people for it to be useful as a reading platform. Additionally, if a politician has supporters and says they're putting stuff on the page then the supporters can be directed to use it. Unlike regular social media, where you require lots of people interacting and sharing content before it's useful, this just starts with one person going "I agree with this statement, my name is on the page, you can read about what I want here and interact with me via this site". Then people follow the one, rather than the crowd. Now I've responded to your deconstructive feedback twice. I've worked with people like you in projects before, where you play the holy critic and never offer any substantive solutions to the problems you raise because you're not interested in collaboration towards a solution, only to prove someone else wrong. I challenge you in your next response to offer at least one solution to an issue you raise.
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Dec 16, 2019 19:10
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Helsing posted:The old left tried to link the current grievances of the masses to a historical project aiming at the reconstruction of society. Not just a new government but an entire new set of social relations that would fundamentally change the social order. I actually really like your point here (came out when I was typing that massive post). This I think is the failure of the creative left. For all of Hollywood and the gaming sphere's collective "leftism", they are incredibly trite and repetitive when it comes to visions of the future. Almost everything is worse or dystopic in media, because that plays on our fears and sells really well right now. There's no better future to look forward to because no one has built one to show people in screen or fiction. It's a failure of imagination and a triumph of profit over creativity that has created this problem and it needs to change.
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Dec 16, 2019 19:14
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NaanViolence posted:A big part of the solution is to stop using twitter. Stop pretending it's legitimate, and definitely stop pretending that anyone who uses it can be a leftist. Most of the politics threads in D&D are a joke because of all the twitter linking. Ironically you're going to have to avoid collective action [at first] to get something to work. Which sounds more effective/realistc: Build a small, devout core group and grow from there, slowly adding on people until everyone sees what you're doing and the effort you've already put in and starts to dogpile on. or... Try to organize a big effort with millions of people to boycott a platform lots of legitimate actors use for sharing personal life stuff, government updates, etc.? Not to mention that how would news of the boycott spread? Without using Twitter, you're just going to have to go to another social media platform to broadcast your intent to stop using Twitter and to join the movement. Heck if you use it to broadcast your message and then turn off your account then you're just proving the effectiveness of the platform. I would love to get rid of Twitter but I think the best option is just to ignore it as much as possible and focus on interpersonal connections and small communities that build a body of work over time. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 19:27
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Ytlaya posted:This is nonsense. The idea that a person can legally own land (or real estate, or shares in a business, etc) is not some inherent property of nature. Those are things that require a government that will enforce them. It's pretty natural for a dog to piss on the ground to claim an area of territory as their own. You're confusing private ownership with capitalism, though I'll give you that you can't have capitalism without private ownership of assets. That being said, ownership is part of the natural world and every type of system approaches it in some way. Communism is communal ownership for example. But communism still allows for private effects like photos, mementos, etc. - if not explicitly then implicitly through human nature. What's the point of this conversational detour? How does it relate to the future of progressive politics? UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 23:41
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I agree with the implicit argument in your statement; that the means of progress and prosperity (power) should not be so easily commanded by such a small, unnacountable individuals. But, without falling back on the "ism wars" of the early 1900s, what is the path forward for progressive politics to answer this challenge and what does the destination look like?
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Dec 17, 2019 01:21
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OwlFancier posted:Whatever you call it, the way society currently runs is resulting in a large amount of productive capability being wasted, both in terms of wealth accumulating at the top as it is extracted from all the levels below by the way private ownership works, and also with private ownership and the wealth extraction motive being the driver for what productive capacity is applied towards. Which is to say we're all making stupid poo poo because what matters is that any poo poo is made and sold to facilitate the wealth extraction process. So I still don't agree that private ownership will go away, but we're talking about degrees of agreement here rather than total misalignment. With your last paragraph, are you suggesting that you pick these visible failures of the private model and lobby against them? What's a specific action here that you're thinking of or would like to see happen, even if a perfect world? Imagine a movie and play your idea out, I'd like to see what you're thinking. Helsing posted:Having a vague sense of the destination isn't the same as having a path forward and practical arguments aren't as separable from moral ones as we might like to think. I don't know what you mean. Helsing posted:The problem here is how to translate big picture goals into an actionable agenda that motivates people to fight. There has to be some guiding vision or set of principles that inform the left on how to use a victory and that allow it to survive temporary setbacks or defeats. Otherwise you're left with this idea that we should just sit around repeating the same ideas to the same tiny crowds and hoping that after the next crisis people will suddenly see the relevance and urgency of our ideas and that really there's nothing we can do to change anyway, we're already perfect and we just need to wait around for the rest of society to see the innate correctness of our analysis. This I agree with, but that's also why I was advocating for my website earlier: local people create local objectives that are attainable by the people nearby. Once accomplished, it empowers that group which in turns empowers the overall movement ("Look, other people that are a part of this are changing things where they are, we can do it too!"). I think it's down to picking a destination ("We want the world to look like this when we're done") and then finding small things that build up over time. Here's another project idea; create a VR experience of "the world of tomorrow" where you can showcase climate change but also really interesting ways that a functioning society has adapted to that change. Underwater cities, etc. Stuff that really inspires people to think big about what they can change.
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Dec 18, 2019 04:10
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:You really don't need to/shouldn't try to techbro progressivism out of the political wilderness. OwlFancier posted:Housing sucks, rents too high, quality terrible, tenancy agreements not secure, take housing into state ownership, run as a service, not as a profit making model, offer secure tenancies, low rates, subsidize with tax revenue from a second house tax or something. Basically how it used to work in the UK before they privatized everything. The state ownership model works and solves a lot of the problems with private enterprise. Because the private problems are that it works only to maximise profit. These are all solutions that I agree with, thank you guys. I like the idea of rebuilding the identity. Do you think the world will reject the idea of an American identity though? I know I asked earlier to start painting a picture of where we're going and I think we're doing that. What about paths to that destination? How can we (as progressives), for example, discover and recruit good leaders? How can we retake the flag and the identity? How can we take housing into state ownerships and run it as a service, etc? If not how right now then how can we get there from here? I'm still stuck on my "techbro" idea of a website but there are other ideas out there!
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Dec 18, 2019 16:44
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Thread right now: "we should fix the country" "lol the concept of country is literally meaningless". This is sure to present a way forward for progressive politics and is in no way bullshit leftist wankery that only serves the poster's egos. Still in this thread there's been maybe two people including me that have proposed an actual action that someone could try besides jerking off about ideology wars in 2020.
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Dec 18, 2019 23:02
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Helsing posted:If you want people to take your criticisms more seriously then it would help if you could demonstrate a basic familiarity with the issues being discussed. Your dismissal right now comes off as something reflexive rather than something based on a genuinely informed or thoughtful opinion. No. My criticism is that this is all just intellectual wankery at the expense of proposing action. At least drive towards something, rather than meta-statements on whether nationality is valid or armchair political machinations. State something like "I think we should do this and this is one way I can do it locally" or "this is one concrete item that, once removed, I will be able to do something". I dare you.
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Dec 19, 2019 21:01
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Helsing posted:Having a coherent and operational theory of society and social change isn't the irrelevant distraction you seem to think it is. Ok, how will this directly help to create path forward for progressive politics?
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Dec 19, 2019 22:24
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Well I see both your points and am interested to see what guiding principles can be generated to create an overarching sense of unity and identity between liberals across the world.
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Dec 20, 2019 18:40
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Can you give examples of the night schools thing? I'm interested.
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Dec 23, 2019 18:00
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Very good posts. I have read through all of them and now a couple of Sophia Burns's articles. I see the logic in saying that progressive movements in the United States are essentially fronts for the Democratic Party. I don't think it's completely purposeful, as she suggests; merely that the same people who canvas for progressive ideals also canvas for the Democrats. However in many cases I do think it is purposeful, like she suggests. In regards to your post, Helsing - I think those gents are spot on. The creation of a successful movement requires 1) Grievances, 2) Will and ability to organize and 3) Opportunity to seize for growth. The difficulty in finding all of those is obvious. Political organizing is a full-time job for a reason and if you're able to do it you're either one of the "activist lifestylers" that Sophia derides or a part of an established political machine and functioning as an agent of one of the major parties - who are paying your salary or their donors are paying the operating budget of your party-influenced organization. During my time on the Occupy forums when that movement was first starting, I met a very strange man. He was definitely a little off-kilter, and caused quite the stir because he never really engaged in discussions - he just kept repeating the same couple of questions over and over. He frustrated a lot of users because he literally just said the same things over and over again. "obfuscating the core of accountability" was one of his taglines. He interested me because I've never seen someone so devoted to a singular line of thought. After speaking with him and then falling out of touch, I bring his idea here because I believe it is correct and speaks directly to these quoted issues. It is simple; accountability as a movement. It's similar to the Geneva trials after WW2. Great injustice was wrought and a people's court was called to try those who did it. Let's skip the details of who got off and who was bargained for; the message is clear: no one is above the law. So, a movement for accountability seems to be the proper course of action. The major grievance of our time is that leaders are not prosecuted for their wrongdoing. That's what gets people upset. There is a will to organize, to find purpose - and I believe that with a singular, clear mission statement (bring accountability to the elite, force trials, etc.) then the ability will coalesce. There are many opportunities to capture the public's fervor and use it to grow. Epstein's trial is one, for example. Demanding accountability, focusing in on that and creating the movement around that is possible, I think. The details I do not know, but I do know that there is a massive appetite for justice from the common class. To Sophia's point, "Accountability" is self-cleaning - in the words of this crazy man. You cannot be "for" accountability while letting unaccountable behavior fester in your movement. Technically, you can - but it's a house of cards. The moment you're ousted as being corrupt, the movement fails or you get replaced. It's like playing the game with a gun against your head - if you cheat, you're out. If you don't, you can win. So in this way, it resists co-opting by the existing power structure because if they co-opt it and are found out, then the movement itself can turn on them. Finally, it calls back to the core idea of the American Experiment, for those that want to build a leftist America identity. The whole reason we have a democracy (representational republic for you pedants) is to create a mechanism by which to hold leaders accountable; do bad stuff, lose your job. Accountability hits all the points brought up in this thread and the message is so simple, so direct, so easy to say and understand, that I think it could really be the thing that the working class rallies around.
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Dec 24, 2019 04:10
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OwlFancier posted:I find the idea of suggesting there could be a movement in the US to hold the state to account in a manner similar to the nuremburg trials post WW2 quite funny, given the US's role in paperclipping a whole shedload of nazis out of Germany so that they wouldn't face justice and could help prop up its own military capabilities lol. Oh hey that's literally the reply that I preempted in my post. "Let's skip the details of who got off and who was bargained for; the message is clear: no one is above the law." You must feel super Clever and Smart. You focused on the one weak analogy instead of the meat of what I said. I presume because it's easier to pick a hole in something obvious rather than putting in the effort of replying to the gestalt? What about the rest of what I said? The concept? How it is a direct response to what people have said in this thread and ties in with running themes of this discussion?
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Dec 24, 2019 04:44
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OwlFancier posted:And I dispute that you can or should "skip the details" when "skipping the details" leads you to characterise the invasion and forcible regime change of a country by exterior powers who were completely willing to profit off its atrocities while claiming to be ideologically opposed to everything it stood for, as a self-generated grassroots revolution against the power structure in said country. My point is that the issue is a lack of accountability. What needs to be done is to hold those in power accountable. Reread my post and remove that analogy to get what my point is, rather than focusing on it. quote:Note that this is not to say that the nazis wouldn't have likely collapsed to internal pressures in time but specifically claiming that the process of the second world war and what came after is applicable to domestic politics in our countries today is just... I do not understand it at all? Once again, you're focusing too much on the analogy. What I'm talking about is holding power accountable. Reread my post and remove the part where I mentioned the Nuremberg trials and you'll see what I was trying to say. quote:The process you are describing is in no way at all "self cleaning" and I don't get what you seem to think efforts to organize for justice are at the moment? I also don't get what you think the effects of turning in on itself whenever it comes into contact with the power structure (which again, I characterise as being inherently "dirty" to use your analogy) would be? Movement gains traction, movement becomes established, movement tries to effect change through the power structure, becomes corrupt, leaders ousted, nothing is done, movement tries same process again? It's cleansing in the fact that if you try to take someone to task for doing something wrong, but you yourself are doing something wrong, the movement will collapse in on itself in infighting. It destroys itself, as a feature - not a bug. quote:The reason movements become corrupt through contact with the power structure is that the alternative is that they lose the ability to do things through the power structure because they can't engage with it. In which case what you're advocating for is something that doesn't even try to use the existing power structure because it's inherently damaging to the cause. You're focusing on the part where it's self-purging, rather than the crux of what I was trying to say: the issue of our times, and the firebrand that progressivism can use, is the lack of accountability for those in power. By focusing efforts on forcing accountability, we strike at the heart of the modern issue. The real question you should be asking is "how can we hold the elite accountable for their actions" and once you realize we have no answer, then we can start discussing how to find the things that really need to be done. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Dec 24, 2019 |
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Dec 24, 2019 16:06
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TBH I think left vs. right is a red herring issue. Not saying "both sides are the same", more like outside of the extremes, there are a lot of overlapping values. I.e. hunters, typically considered very "right" in the US are actually the people who pay the most to maintain our wild lands through their hunting licenses and conservation efforts. By pitting clumps of people against each other, the elite ruin any momentum those movements may have. For example, Occupy & the Tea Party actually had a lot of overlapping demands and concerns (such as they were). However they were manipulated by the media into opposing left and right sides and never built a critical mass, instead spending a lot of their energy fighting each other.
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Dec 24, 2019 16:42
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What's a left vs. what's a right solution for forcing the elite to be accountable for their actions?
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Dec 25, 2019 18:21
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Infinite Karma posted:Destroy the elite vs. fantasize about being the elite. Which is which? Because I could see that being either. Left: we want to help everyone, we should be in charge. Right: we know what's best, put us in charge and we'll keep things in check. So how does the populace hold the elites accountable for their actions? My wife and I were just talking about this, and while candidates like Bernie are saying to tax the wealthy, reform campaign finance, have better police oversight etc., no one is coming out and saying "hold elites accountable". There are no activist movements around it, either. Our system was built to hold the most powerful people at the time (government leaders/Kings) accountable. Now, the most powerful people are billionaires and government officials who never have to worry about facing a real election. How do the people hold them accountable for what they've done? How do remove the second layer of law for people who make more than $100 million or whatever, or who are super well connected? UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 25, 2019 |
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Dec 25, 2019 19:27
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Orange Devil posted:Depends mostly on how you define "accountable", "the elite" and which specific (sub)set of actions you are calling for said accountability on. What a delightful non-answer. Rather than providing definitions for any of the categories you created to subdivide the issue into meaningless hair-splitting, you deftly avoided it and tried to put it on me to provide your talking points for you. Pass. @asdf32 - I agree with everything you said. It's not about destroying elites permanently. They will always be there. It's about holding them accountable to the same laws as the rest of us.
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Dec 26, 2019 02:29
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OwlFancier posted:I would suggest that the most comprehensive leftist position is that the definition of "the elite" is that they aren't held to the same laws as the rest of us because otherwise they wouldn't be "elite" and the idea that a society can exist in this perpetual stalemate where they exist but have no undue power is farcical, and that society must instead be organized in such a manner that they do not exist. No I'm not. I'm saying that there will be elite who will rise to power and their intentions may be good or bad but regardless they must be held accountable to the same justice system the rest of us are.
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Dec 26, 2019 02:54
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OwlFancier posted:If you think that you have the capability to fight people with more power than you repeatedly and bend them to the law, it seems weird to me that you think that's preferable to just... making it so they don't keep appearing. Because human nature dictates they will always appear. In a Marxist system, the elites are the central planners or the well-connected in the government. In a socialist system, they are similar. In a capitalist system, they are the wealthy and well-connected. There will always be class differences in human civilization. There will always be people that strive ten times harder and get more of the pie. There will always be people who cheat and lie. There will always be good people who get hooked on drugs and fall to the bottom. Always. To believe otherwise is naive. The reason that the framers of the American Constitution put checks and balances in to the system is because they understood human nature enough to know that there will always be those who seek power over others and rather than giving in to some hopeless dream that no, once democracy is established everyone will want to be equal and no one will try to get the better of others, they established a system whereby those individual desires would be put in check by the systems they are forced to utilize. You are arguing for a theoretical, a pipe dream that cannot be because you are hoping to somehow change basic human nature for all of time. What I am advocating for is a response to a practical reality. I do not even have an idea of how it can be done yet - I just know that it must be done. asdf32 posted:Please describe your classless society. Yes, please do so OwlFancier. Give this man what he wants, because i'd like to see it too. Orange Devil posted:I don't have any talking points. I'm just rejecting your oversimplification. Rejection without a supplemental is complaining for the sake of being heard.
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Dec 26, 2019 03:07
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OwlFancier posted:Like instead of having this weird class of ultra rich sex weirds in charge, we just... don't? Wow, powerful, cutting. Deep. "How about we just don't have rich people ever again?". Also, your constant oversimplification of the argument is disturbing. You keep implying that we're...saying that the law will make people good? All we're saying is that people of all classes need to be equal before it.
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Dec 26, 2019 03:10
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I think the path forward for progressive politics is to actually engage with concrete action that creates visible results, rather than endless theoretical committee debates. The advantage that conservative politics has over progressives is, I think, that it is easy to ground conservatism in reality. They deal with the real and the actionable. Stop this thing from happening, keep those people out, etc. The left tends to devolve into these intellectual pissing matches where people like you, OwlFancier, like to live in a theoretical bubble. "We should just not make classes exist". Then you offer no concrete ideas on how that would happen or what it would even look like. The entire conversation gets dragged into a quagmire of trying to get liberal theorists to see the naivety of their positions and to get them to engage with reality, but they refuse because in their heads, reality could be so much better if only we could just make everything different. NovemberMike makes a good point that a lot of what liberals propose are really nebulous, they doesn't deal with the material conditions of the working class (hey, where's my food? where's my healthcare? what happens if I get let go from my job?). As an example of your arugment: reparations - is it all blacks? If not how do you prove they should get it? What if they're recent immigrants? What is one unit of bad equal to in reparation units? Should we go back and honor the mule and acre of land? On and on and on and to be frank, those people would probably be better served by improving their lives now with the issues of today. This is an issue that sounds great in theory, but doesn't have a lot of real-world touchpoints or even value to a lot of people (other than "lets give stuff to people who are disadvantaged" where at that point you could make that the policy, rather than making it a race thing). But liberal theorists, again, like to live in a fantasy world where all that matters is that they say the right things and think the right thoughts and try to slug it out with conservatives for votes by pandering to lots of different focus groups. Lots of times they punch way below where they should because they don't deal in reality, they deal in ideas - and ideas without action are useless. So I think, again: the path forward for progressive politics is to shed the top-heavy weight of liberal theorism and begin engaging directly with reality as it is, rather than what reality could be molded into. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 03:30
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NovemberMike posted:Do you actually read the things that you're responding to? UnknownTarget, would you agree with OwlFancier's summary of your statement? Like...no, not at all. OwlFancier, if you're having trouble extracting meaning from it but others aren't, maybe re-read the post without such a strong bias? You have skipped over the parts, repeatedly, where I've said that what I'm saying is that the issue is that elites aren't accountable for their actions and we (the people) need to find a way to change that. If you don't understand that "make everyone equal before the law" means that I implicitly accept that wealth and power disparity make it so that people are not equal before the law and that we need to change that, then brush up on your reading comprehension. So far, if I was to summarize OwlFancier's argument, it's basically: "It's impossible to make the powerful kneel before the law. Therefore, we should make being powerful impossible." Or put another way: "It's impossible to catch robbers, so we should just make a society where no one will ever steal ever again.".
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Dec 26, 2019 04:30
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OwlFancier posted:I do not understand how you propose to change that because as I said, the nature of wealth and power inherently implies control over the law. I don't have a proposal to change that. Hopefully we can have a productive conversation in this thread on a mechanism that could be implemented. I have some ideas, but I don't think they're good. That being said, the original framers had a similar problem. They overthrew an unaccountable leader (with much help from the French <3) and had to develop a system where the new leader wouldn't have the same problem. quote:Except that "being a robber" does not inherently imply control over the law. Wealth and power does inherently imply control over the system of law. If you want to split hairs: 1) Wealth and power imply the ability to ignore the law. Same as a robber. 2) You haven't really disagreed with my summary of your point: "It is impossible to control power, therefore by some *magic sky dust* we will make it impossible to have power.". 3) What I am saying is that the people who run our society should have the power to run our society, but be accountable to other parts of that society. For example, the Executive Branch has the power to control the military, but not the purse. It's called division of power. Anyway, besides all that - would you say my summary of your argument (point #2) thus far is correct or incorrect? Can you state my argument in a sentence?
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Dec 26, 2019 04:43
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It seems that so far you and I have had the most page time recently so our discussion is part of the larger question: what is the path forward for progressive politics. I believe that I have laid out a realistic goal that reacts to reality. OwlFancier, if I can state your argument despite me not agreeing with it or sharing your view, then you can do the same for me (your guess is wrong btw, except for the "there will always be rich and powerful people" part). I also challenge you to come up with just one idea of how your utopia would look, function or even come to pass. If you can't define what you're disagreeing with and give an example of how your idea would function or come to pass then your stance objectively holds no water. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 05:15
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Cerebral Bore posted:The literal point of the "checks and balances" in the US constitution was to make it impossible for the popular will to seriously threaten the interests of the upper classes and that anybody is still holding that poo poo up as some kind of gold standard is farcical. https://germanystructuralanalysis.weebly.com/government.html quote:Besides the protection of rights, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany also establishes institutions, each with distinct functions, to enhance the efficiency of the government and distribute power across the board to prevent an authoritarian overthrow. The German government's checks and balance on power is demonstrated through its three constitutional institutions, which are the executive, legislative, and judicial branches respectively. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedstates/en/eu-us-relations/us-and-eu-branches-of-government quote:The traditional division of the various functions of government is: legislative, executive, and judicial. In the U.S., each area is fulfilled by separate institutions to “check” potential abuses and balance each of the branches. Similarly in the EU there are three main political institutions that constitute the EU’s executive and legislative branches, as well as an independent judiciary with the power to exercise judicial review. Are you guys here to discuss the path forward for progressive politics or what? Why are we re-debating basic poo poo from the past? I'm all for challenging the status quo but most of the naysayers in this thread are either wrapped up in naivete or just grumpy do-nothings who have an axe to grind. Propose some ideas you dialectic featherweights. UnknownTarget fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 16:04
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Cerebral Bore posted:I see that being an intellectual heavyweight in your world means posting poo poo about Germany and the EU when we're talking about the US constitution. I suppose one could also point out that plenty of western countries don't actually have a formal separation of powers and still manage to do better than the good ol' USA, but I guess that would be lightweight stuff since it's actually relevant to the discussion. Dialectic != intellectual. Your point was that "anyone who holds up the separation of powers outlined in the US constitution as a gold standard is farcical". I merely posted two other examples of succesful democratic countries that have modeled their separation of powers on the US model. Ergo, I assume you think their approaches are also farcical? You are either like OwlFancier, in that you cannot comprehend arguments, or you are being deliberately obtuse. The people in this thread (myself included) that have argued for a check on elites have simply stated that there will always be some sort of elite class. If they're torn down today, a different group will rise. For some reason, you take that to mean that we support the idea of being ruled by elites. I, personally, accept them as an inevitability of the human condition. Now we are going to go into the traditional progressive circle jerk of infighting. Propose an idea instead. I dare you.
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Dec 26, 2019 16:41
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