The true detriment is a two party system. You are like a dog being thrown scraps by whichever party you vote for, and things are only getting worse while people continue to pick one side or the other and don’t overthrow the entire system they keep supporting.
Perhaps it’s different in other places, but in my experience people do give a lot of shits. The system is just built against us in such a way that it’s almost impossible to either have any hope of changing anything or see any changes that do happen. A huge cause of that disparity is the party system with it’s incessant bickering and corrupt propaganda.
Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are pretty recent examples of where “showing up in numbers” just wasn’t enough. The system is rigged and blaming victims isn’t getting us anywhere. Anecdotally throughout my life, I have seen uncountable numbers of people come to work/school/etc. with an “I voted” sticker, and my conspiracy theory is that the numbers are meaningless and the people who rigged the system already decide who is winning before the first vote is cast, unless they abandon the plan because their polling shows an absolute landslide that would reveal their fuckery.
No true Scotsman and Godwin’s law, nice. Anyways, BLM is an obvious continuation of the civil rights movement, and calling them “slacktivists” is derisive and reductionist.
Protesting until you die of old age is not what it used to be. The surveillance of the modern world makes protestors into easy targets if they ever become a true threat. The powers that be have learned plenty from the civil rights era.
Nobody should have faith in any nation to erode in the first place. Every single one has fucked over their neighbors and their own populations to further the ambitions of the rich and powerful. Look to the erosion of antitrust and privacy laws to see where we are headed. Look at how SOPA and other protests have gone. You seriously think nobody knows how to protest anymore, and it’s just a generational failing? Despite the obvious ways the oppressors have adapted to the modern world?
I’m not really interested in arguing this kind of stuff and I don’t disagree with you that a lack of voter engagement is a problem. But, I would encourage you to try and understand exactly why it seems like people don’t give a shit about the state of politics.
I’d be willing to bet that it’s not actually a lack of giving a shit, just a feeling that our time is better spent on other things in life. Those 80 million people “sitting on the sidelines” aren’t complaining for the fun of it, they are busy trying to live their lives and deal with their own problems. People feel like the system is rigged, not because of some ambiguous statistics, but because every time they try to work with the system they get shit on and forgotten. How can it not feel rigged when the majority of the country votes for one president and gets a different one instead? Or how about when states, without ever asking its citizens, take away a persons right to choose what happens to their own body? How is a system with an archaic electoral college, gerrymandering, corrupt politicians, and a parties that only represents the top 1% not a rigged system?
It’s not that we don’t know that showing up in numbers is a good way to enact change, nor are we just sitting on our collective asses complaining and expecting things will just magically change. We just aren’t holding out hope that enough numbers will show up to make a dent in our lifetimes, or that the changes will even be ones that benefit us.
Please show me where I said to do nothing. Why don’t you try imagining new ways of improving things rather than repeating the mistakes of the past? Of the revolutions in the 18th-20th centuries, I think only the American revolution accomplished anything close to what it was intending. And that’s because it didn’t destroy all the existing institutions while in the process of implementing new ones.
(Not that I agree with what the American revolution was intending, but we did get mostly what they set out to do without thousands of poor civilians starving to death in the process.)
Our institutions are not the problem, our policies are the problem. I want to see a transition to UBI, but a dramatic overhaul that dismantled WIC and SNAP before we got UBI in place would be an unmitigated disaster for the very people we were intending to help.
It’s not the reform that I’m skeptical of. It’s the lust for revolutionary destruction as a path to reform that I’m skeptical of. It’s emotionally satisfying without regard to its actual efficacy in accomplishing the proposed reforms. Because history does not show us evidence that this works out well in the short nor the long run.
I’m proposing a revolution entirely led by the people, as that is the only true kind of revolution. The people who would then rule themselves with no intermediaries. Real grassroots organisation.
By starving millions of them? Because that’s exactly what transpired during most of those revolutions. And the long term outcomes have not turned out to be better for poor people than the American revolution was. Show me the ideal communist state that resulted.
Well they solved starvation by dramatically increasing it and then replaced old systems with new ones that have all those same old problems. So consider me unconvinced. I think we need to find a new way to change these systems that’s more resilient for the future
The true detriment is a two party system. You are like a dog being thrown scraps by whichever party you vote for, and things are only getting worse while people continue to pick one side or the other and don’t overthrow the entire system they keep supporting.
.
Perhaps it’s different in other places, but in my experience people do give a lot of shits. The system is just built against us in such a way that it’s almost impossible to either have any hope of changing anything or see any changes that do happen. A huge cause of that disparity is the party system with it’s incessant bickering and corrupt propaganda.
.
Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are pretty recent examples of where “showing up in numbers” just wasn’t enough. The system is rigged and blaming victims isn’t getting us anywhere. Anecdotally throughout my life, I have seen uncountable numbers of people come to work/school/etc. with an “I voted” sticker, and my conspiracy theory is that the numbers are meaningless and the people who rigged the system already decide who is winning before the first vote is cast, unless they abandon the plan because their polling shows an absolute landslide that would reveal their fuckery.
.
No true Scotsman and Godwin’s law, nice. Anyways, BLM is an obvious continuation of the civil rights movement, and calling them “slacktivists” is derisive and reductionist.
Protesting until you die of old age is not what it used to be. The surveillance of the modern world makes protestors into easy targets if they ever become a true threat. The powers that be have learned plenty from the civil rights era.
Nobody should have faith in any nation to erode in the first place. Every single one has fucked over their neighbors and their own populations to further the ambitions of the rich and powerful. Look to the erosion of antitrust and privacy laws to see where we are headed. Look at how SOPA and other protests have gone. You seriously think nobody knows how to protest anymore, and it’s just a generational failing? Despite the obvious ways the oppressors have adapted to the modern world?
.
I’m not really interested in arguing this kind of stuff and I don’t disagree with you that a lack of voter engagement is a problem. But, I would encourage you to try and understand exactly why it seems like people don’t give a shit about the state of politics.
I’d be willing to bet that it’s not actually a lack of giving a shit, just a feeling that our time is better spent on other things in life. Those 80 million people “sitting on the sidelines” aren’t complaining for the fun of it, they are busy trying to live their lives and deal with their own problems. People feel like the system is rigged, not because of some ambiguous statistics, but because every time they try to work with the system they get shit on and forgotten. How can it not feel rigged when the majority of the country votes for one president and gets a different one instead? Or how about when states, without ever asking its citizens, take away a persons right to choose what happens to their own body? How is a system with an archaic electoral college, gerrymandering, corrupt politicians, and a parties that only represents the top 1% not a rigged system?
It’s not that we don’t know that showing up in numbers is a good way to enact change, nor are we just sitting on our collective asses complaining and expecting things will just magically change. We just aren’t holding out hope that enough numbers will show up to make a dent in our lifetimes, or that the changes will even be ones that benefit us.
The majority party in this country is the party that doesn’t vote.
The second major party is the party that complains endlessly about “both sides”.
The third major party is the party that votes one way because that’s what they’ve been told to do their whole life.
The fourth major party is the one that actually does research and engages that’s being driven mad by the other three.
All revolutions have hurt poor people the most.
Lol sure. So why try and improve things? You’ll only make it worse. Enjoy the scraps.
Please show me where I said to do nothing. Why don’t you try imagining new ways of improving things rather than repeating the mistakes of the past? Of the revolutions in the 18th-20th centuries, I think only the American revolution accomplished anything close to what it was intending. And that’s because it didn’t destroy all the existing institutions while in the process of implementing new ones.
(Not that I agree with what the American revolution was intending, but we did get mostly what they set out to do without thousands of poor civilians starving to death in the process.)
The american revolution upheld slavery in America so yeah you’re not wrong.
deleted by creator
Our current institutions are the problem. Why should we keep them?
Our institutions are not the problem, our policies are the problem. I want to see a transition to UBI, but a dramatic overhaul that dismantled WIC and SNAP before we got UBI in place would be an unmitigated disaster for the very people we were intending to help.
It’s not the reform that I’m skeptical of. It’s the lust for revolutionary destruction as a path to reform that I’m skeptical of. It’s emotionally satisfying without regard to its actual efficacy in accomplishing the proposed reforms. Because history does not show us evidence that this works out well in the short nor the long run.
I’m proposing a revolution entirely led by the people, as that is the only true kind of revolution. The people who would then rule themselves with no intermediaries. Real grassroots organisation.
Well, it better have some kind of mechanism in place to keep the grocery stores full or it’s going to fail on its face.
Couple things for you to look up:
These two things would likely do it.
It also helped them the most.
By starving millions of them? Because that’s exactly what transpired during most of those revolutions. And the long term outcomes have not turned out to be better for poor people than the American revolution was. Show me the ideal communist state that resulted.
Revolutions often happen because of starvation. Not the other way around.
And I can tell you this… Billionaires and their conservative minions are making many of us extremely hungry.
Well they solved starvation by dramatically increasing it and then replaced old systems with new ones that have all those same old problems. So consider me unconvinced. I think we need to find a new way to change these systems that’s more resilient for the future