future moeroeoieroeir
i agree with Liz Warrens critique of Kamala Harris. Harris is a useless fool
marchnaughties
anti brigading bot blocking brigading subs
Some countries are arguably worse off tbh, it’s just that the stakes are lower because they don’t live in the most power country on earth
I'm from a country that has 5 parties in the parliament and it still is an absolute shitshow we have nationalist pensioners' intrerests party (their only policies are discontinuing all projects and raising pensions with that money) nationalist christian liberals (think democrats but nationalists and conservative) hungarian minority party (they just lobby for Hungary) neonazis (no need to add anything) and progressive neolibs (literally the democrats)
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/apr/13/swing-voters-are-fine-with-the-trump-charges-thats/
corp
eco
breadtube
level 1
Elel_siggir
·
1 mo. ago
Not a neo-liberal. Not part of the "in-crowd". Critical of democrats and their money is politics scam. And, Biden isn't doing anything apart from making exploitation more diverse.
I'll support her. marianna willismason
So? She's a new-age spiritualist author who has no real movement and an incredibly goofy platform. She has no real chance and doesn't represent any serious constituent of American politics. If it's just her and Biden I'll vote for her as a protest, but I don't love her as a candidate or anything.
breadtube
https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/tzbq0a/nancy_pelosi_blames_the_left_for_corporate/
I agree with the video that its clear you can't be a purist about leftist values, there likely has to be some incremental steps or moderates that move people to the left and maybe a leftist celebrity politician giving voice to these ideas normalizes it and that translates to policy. Regardless I think the tone of the video being "how could you not like this" ignores one of the most hollowing traits of capitalism where it can commodify anything.
According to Fisher, capitalist realism has so captured public thought that the idea of anti-capitalism no longer acts as the antithesis to capitalism. Instead, it is deployed as a means for reinforcing capitalism. This is done through media which aims to provide a safe means of consuming anti-capitalist ideas without actually challenging the system.
"Ironically" going to the Met Gala and being like a celebrity is still going to the Gala. The message becomes more a style and part of the pomp, and the rich there seem to be treating it as such.
The anti-capitalism or socialist brand is like punk, even something with the msg "fuck the establishment" ends up being processed by the machine. AOC going to the met gala instead of something like the eviction moratorium rally does come across as more celebrity photo shoot than worker solidarity.
I'm happy to be wrong in my skepticism but I don't really feel like the video engaged the left wing criticism of participating in the Gala like this.
don’t love “tax the rich” actually. It’s supposed to be “eat the rich.” “Tax” implies capitalism should be upheld.
This is just Capitalist Realism. Safe “anti-capitalism” within the bounds deemed acceptable by the ruling class (which, believe it or not, AOC is apart of).
Taxing the rich to further enrich the military industrial complex because that's where all that extra tax revenue is gonna go to lol. The CEOs of Lockheed Martin and Boeing do not give two shits about a higher tax rate because they all know they can recuperate their losses. I think people see this and assume each slice would get a proportioned increase in spending even though there's absolutely nothing stopping the federal government from just giving the extra revenue entirely to the MIC. So, people will still not have free healthcare, but the military has even more expensive toys to murder brown people with.
2 yr. ago
Exactly. Increasing taxes just gives the ruling class more funds to divest in greedy endeavors. We cannot trust them to allocate them fairly.
Part I -
“If you refuse to even support incremental change because you will only accept a full on end to capitalism then nothing will change. Capitalism is a world spanning economic system that is so much bigger and more powerful than any one of us. It’s not going to just ‘end’ one day, it’s going to take time.”
“Incremental change” still implies that all the system requires is change. It doesn’t. It requires complete and utter dissolution. Period. We cannot wait for this while AOC wears dresses to galas full of the wealthy elite hosted by the corporations she claims to loathe.
Capitalism will end the same way feudalism ended. It became so unsustainable that either through revolutions or the pure collapse of society, it will dissolve altogether. If we weren’t facing a climate disaster, “time” wouldn’t be an issue, but we are. We don’t have 10, 30, 50 years to wait on the Squad to do their jobs. It’s time to admit that the progressive experiment failed and move on to direct action.
The only way we even became a welfare state was because of the actions of whom modern “leftists” would call tankies: the Black Panther Party.
It was the Black Panther Party that rejected the idea of electoralism as a whole in favor of mutual aid and direct action. Free Clinics, Free Lunch/Breakfast, and Free After-School Care programs did not exist before the Black Panther Party cultivated them in their community. Their complete divestment from electoralism as a whole is what actually prompted the ruling class to do something about conditions in their communities: not votes. And the irony is that the capitalist state didn’t do it because they had a revelation that conditions were inhumane, they did it because they knew if they didn’t, enough people would join the BPP to bring about a revolution.
“So reforming the system might suck but even reforms mean better immediate results. Some progress is better than no progress in my opinion”
Maybe if you guys actually made progress, I wouldn’t have to say this, but the fact of the matter is: AOC and the Squad have done nothing to push a social democratic agenda, let alone one of communism. Even when giving the opportunity to do so.
But “some progress” still neglects the people who cannot survive much longer. Immigrants caged at the border. AOC cried about them under Trump. But now the number of detainees has increased under Biden and she defended them. This includes people who are unhoused. This includes women who fear for their reproductive rights. This includes black people and brown people who are now feeling the effects of increased police budgets—some of which AOC and other so-called “progressives” voted for. This includes people STILL dying from COVID because of yet another presidential administration who does not take it seriously. This includes people starving to death because minimum wage does not cover their basic needs. This includes people dying from preventable ailments without healthcare. This includes indigenous people fighting to keep pipelines from breaching the very little land they have left. This includes people abroad suffering from sanctions and war-mongering and every other imperialist horror inflicted from the US.
They. Cannot. Wait.
“. . . and I’m sorry but it’s easier to get the average American voter to root for ‘tax the rich’ than ‘eat the rich’.”
The average American does not vote. In this last election, that number has declined, but a whopping 1/3 of the population still does not vote.
These are the people who we need to appeal to. These are the people the BPP appealed to. My mindset of “no politician is my friend” is a common one and will likely only multiply seeing how ineffective this Democratic administration is, but how insane the Republicans are in comparison.
“As for the idea that this is ‘capitalist realism’, I’d like to point out AOC actually pushes and supports policies to increase taxes on the wealthy which is still actually a good thing even if it won’t end capitalism.”
Serious question: do you even want to see the end of capitalism? Or do you just prefer social democracy where American imperialism is further outsourced?
Because all raising taxes on the rich will do is give the ruling class more wealth to funnel into Wall Street bailouts and warmongering and police budgets. Even if there 535 AOCs in Congress, do you honestly trust them to distribute wealth fairly?
If the ruling class were to raise taxes on themselves and shut the working class up with a few choice policies (GND, M4A, DTP, maybe even UBI), this would not change their hold and power at all. They would simply get the mass of their wealth elsewhere in the world. Capitalism would be upheld and we’d be right back where we are today in 40 years.
Scandinavia’s and Western Europe’s social democracies are built on the blood of Africans, South Asians, Arabs, and Indigenous folk.
Capitalist realism has such a hold on the American left. A lot of you would imagine the end of the world sooner than you would the end of capitalism.
“She’s also spreading the message in a way guaranteed to get headlines and generate buzz and break through to the generally checked out part of American society that doesn’t think about politics but likes glamour and celebrity (most of America is not Twitter leftists, shockingly).”
New York politcians generally go to the Met Gala and they generally wear an ugly, obscenely expensive get-up with a political message (see: Rep. Carolyn Maloney). Most people either agree with it or don’t and move on with their day. Politically unengaged people don’t become engaged unless someone reaches out to them offering an actually substantive change in their lives.
I’m so tired of the concept that the best an elected official can do is “spread a message.” To whom? Who is honestly going to get radicalized by a “Tax the Rich” dress? Did someone get radicalized by Joy Villa’s “Build the Wall” dress lol? Is it for her celebrity friends who already love and appreciate her for defanging what the proletariat movement in America once was?*
It’s not even her saying “tax the rich” that pisses me off the most. Not even her defanging “eat the rich.” Hell, even her attending the Met Gala while BLM protesters were arrested right outside makes me the angriest. It’s her constant need to act as if she’s a common person lobbying Congress to do something and not a fricking Congresswoman herself. And it’s y’all DEFENDING her for it.
That’s what boils my blood.
People who listen to AOC are going to listen to her regardless of if she’s in the House Chamber or if she’s at the Met Gala. She’s one of the most well-known elected officials in the country. Of course she’ll have the nation’s attention.
She doesn’t need to do this pointless publicity stunt to steal and neuter our slogans.
“Honestly if you ask me the people really engaging in ‘safe anti capitalism’ are the terminally online left.”
I’m pretty sure 90% of leftists use Twitter. The more radical leftists (at lead the ones I know personally) still walk their talk by engaging in mutual aid and organizing. I know I do. Can you say the same?
“They don’t push for policy.”
Again, policy would mean that we want the current system in place, which we don’t.
“They don’t do much beyond a few protests,“
What do you constitute as few? I’m a college student with two jobs and a doggo, but I always make it my business to attend at least one protest a week, but what I engage in the most in is mutual aid. Most of the leftists I work with do the same.
“many proudly don’t vote.”
Disengagement is not the fault of the public, it’s the fault of the political class for not engaging them. Everyone I know was a progressive Democrat at once until the Democratic Party (namely the progressives) let them down.
“All they do is send tweets complaining about capitalism from the comfort of their own homes,”
Isn’t that what we all do lol?
“aggressively and divisively tear down any prominent left of centre figure trying to achieve anything and keep their standards so ridiculously high (“yeah you support the green new deal, M4A, housing, an end to ICE, police violence and taxing the wealthy……. But you aren’t literally trying to end capitalism and occasionally vote in line with establishment democrats you DIRTY LIB KILL YOURSELF!”)”
Is it really that hard to ask for a socialist to actually support socialism and not social democracy?
Like I really don’t think AOC would get half the shit she does from us if she just said from the beginning, “Hey, guys, I’m still a capitalist, I just believe in a strong welfare state and social programs.” If what we said wasn’t so popular, why didn’t she and Bernie just introduce themselves as socdems? It probably would have gotten them more voters tbh.
Or did they know there was fresh anti-capitalist sentiment brewing in America they could build political careers on? Oh well, guess we’ll never know.
“that they are impossible to please so very little actually gets changed.”
I mean, our job as citizens is to criticize politicians. They’re not our friends.
It’s so weird to me that we have to congratulate them when they don’t do something entirely evil and bloodthirsty.
I often wonder if it’s like this in other countries because it seems to be really bad America.
*AOC obviously didn’t do this single-handedly, but she did play a big part in it.
2
Share
User avatar
level 4
vintagegossamer
·
2 yr. ago
·
edited 2 yr. ago
Part II -
“Like think about it these online leftists risk literally nothing, they are usually anonymous and the grand sum of their activity is angry shitposting on Twitter.”
This isn’t true with the people I know, but aight.
Like a lot of the people I follow are mostly BIPOC, LGBTQ+, un-housed, or sex workers. And all of them participate in mutual aid? I think I know a few personalities to whom you’re referring (not naming names), but those people are just as bad as the other side of the aisle imo. And many of them ally with downright right-wingers.
It’s like hyper-dystopian capitalist realism atp. On one side, you have people who seem to be in denial about the viability of American electoralism and lash out at the growing mass of people who divest from it (most of whom were radicalized by personalities, not conditions) and then you have the closeted right-wingers who prey on those who finally wander into true anti-capitalism in attempts to herd them to the right. No matter where you go in the Amerikkkan “left” there’s always a capitalist masquerading as an ally lol.
“As contra put it ‘edgy leftists who complain about both sides and do nothing aren’t really any different from edgy centrists who complain about both sides and do nothing’.”
Contra is literally a millionaire lol.
Like I don’t even want to get into my opinions on her, so let’s not.
But is it edgy to want to abolish capitalism now? Is that where we are on the left?
“And edgy refusal to participate in politics, encouraging black pill level disengagement among the youth and attacking any left wing figure who is not literally ending capitalism right now while calling even incremental progress unworthy of consideration undoubtedly helps the ruling class.”
Not if you’re doing something to actually detach the working class from the need for a ruling class. Instead of suckling at the teet of the ruling class who wears a “Tax the Rich” feeding bib.
“Which AOC who has a net worth of less than $100k assuredly is not,”
AOC makes shy of 200k per year. That’s rich to me, but I grew up poor so . . .
“putting her in the same camp as billionaires just because she’s not living in a shack and using rat pelts as bedding is idiotic.”
There’s a difference between being homeless and living in a penthouse. Like I can’t believe I have to explain this.
AOC is someone who hosts a lot of charity drives and usually asks her working class base (who averages about 60k per household) to participate, which always seemed strange to me, because she averages about 10k a month. She can put the money up herself and still have a lot to spare.
“If leftist ideas are just the product of a relatively tiny fringe that mainly goes online then that benefits the ruling class.”
Your perception of left-wing ideas is poor.
It’s an interpretation of theory in a modern day and age that influences our ideas. Usually through a lot of reading from works of Marxist scholars.
“If left wing ideas start to catch on with mainstream normie voters, even those normally politically disengaged, then those ideas have a chance of taking root.”
Doesn’t taxing the rich already have something like a 90% approval rating lol? What more does it need for it to pass? Divine intervention?
Like atp, you’ll be telling yourselves this forever. You have to let go of the idea that things will change under capitalism because they WON’T. And even if they do, it’ll still be capitalism which is NOT the goal of communism or even socialism.
People who are politically disengaged aren’t going to jump for joy when they see AOC’s dress. That’s the truth.
“happy cake day.”
Thanks.
sjw pc
gaslighting things
breadtube
Over the last couple of years I’ve come to the conclusion that there really is no such thing as a “joke.” People just like to hide their real opinions behind the guise of comedy because they don’t want to suffer the social cos consequences of having those opinions. It’s like that old saying goes, only the jester could make fun of the king. Comedy is not an excuse for being reactionary.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/qb47i7/comment/hh8akec/?context=999
Edit: You down vote me, yet this is exactly what the OP is saying and I agree with. Curious. Maybe don’t tell racist jokes and you won’t have a guilty conscience
-71
Share
It would have cost you nothing to be reasonable for one minute and type something like "i think people use jokes as an excuse to spew their genuine shitty opinions way more often than not", and nobody here would have disagreed with you. Not a single soul. The only reason you are getting downvoted is because you made a ridiculous and hyperbolic categorical judgement of ALL comedy.
We are not "freeze peach defenders" for recognizing there's room for nuance and complexity in this debate. But still we all know being a bigot under a thin guise of "comedy" is an asshole thing to do that deserves criticism. I have said this to you three times already and you keep ignoring it.
You are oversimplifying, essentializing and making sweeping manichean generalizations, and then going all "with me or against me" mentality on people when they tell you to chill out with the hyperbole. Get your head out of your ass for 5 seconds, god damn.
User avatar
level 2
Sergnb
·
1 yr. ago
·
edited 1 yr. ago
Why is it so hard for people to just have nuanced stances of things instead of jumping to these ridiculous hyperboles?
It's simultaneously possible for some people to say shocking things they don't mean as a joke, and also for some others to use jokes as a way to explore asshole opinions they actually do hold but are too afraid to say with a straight face. There's no need to make these kind of sweeping generalizations.
Jesus christ, guys. Come on now.
Comments
Post a Comment