People have been fed up for a long time and looking for change. That’s what helped Obama win in 2008. Alas, the propaganda from the fascists has been pervasive since long before that, so a lot of the people fed up for now decades have been deluded into voting for what continues to make things worse.
It’s not just that a lot of the establishment Dems are not only behind the times but also beholden to corporate money, dragging them right-wing; but also, even shit they DO get done always gets minimized in the media (largely owned by oligarchs who benefit from fascist laws and tax cuts) while the fascists get a lot of passes in the media for those same reasons.
I think there are a number of countries out there showing that properly regulated capitalism is probably the best practical system we have. But it has to be properly regulated. And it is a constant fight. Laws matter little if people ignore them and nobody enforces them. So no matter what system is set in place, there will always be a fight by people to corrupt it.
And the point about social changes is also true. I have my wife, and two real friends. A few acquaintences I chat with every few weeks. A few people I keep up with online but mostly in shared projects, not socially. Much of my family I’ve had to block for political reasons, so I have my dad and one uncle left. My stepmom, but I was an adult when lost mom and dad remarried - she’s really sweet and I adore her but just don’t talk much.
I think something like that - that lack of people - is probably true for most. We used to be forced to deal with our neighbors because most people didn’t move around much, so for a lot of people, you’d spend decades in the same place. With the rise of communications making it easier to keep in touch remotely, it’s definitely radically shifted our social construct.
I think that’s one reason - when people say “all this talk online does nothing” - but this is the last marketplace of ideas we have. This is where we have left to organize. So like-minded people have to find each other somehow, and then hopefully organize on the local, regional, national levels. Because we need to organize to have protests. And protests need to happen until everyone sees there are enough of us that demand change that we can enforce that demand. So it’s like an effort that must be ramped up, and talking online is the critical foundation for that, even though it’s useless until we get there.
People have been fed up for a long time and looking for change. That’s what helped Obama win in 2008. Alas, the propaganda from the fascists has been pervasive since long before that, so a lot of the people fed up for now decades have been deluded into voting for what continues to make things worse.
It’s not just that a lot of the establishment Dems are not only behind the times but also beholden to corporate money, dragging them right-wing; but also, even shit they DO get done always gets minimized in the media (largely owned by oligarchs who benefit from fascist laws and tax cuts) while the fascists get a lot of passes in the media for those same reasons.
I think there are a number of countries out there showing that properly regulated capitalism is probably the best practical system we have. But it has to be properly regulated. And it is a constant fight. Laws matter little if people ignore them and nobody enforces them. So no matter what system is set in place, there will always be a fight by people to corrupt it.
And the point about social changes is also true. I have my wife, and two real friends. A few acquaintences I chat with every few weeks. A few people I keep up with online but mostly in shared projects, not socially. Much of my family I’ve had to block for political reasons, so I have my dad and one uncle left. My stepmom, but I was an adult when lost mom and dad remarried - she’s really sweet and I adore her but just don’t talk much.
I think something like that - that lack of people - is probably true for most. We used to be forced to deal with our neighbors because most people didn’t move around much, so for a lot of people, you’d spend decades in the same place. With the rise of communications making it easier to keep in touch remotely, it’s definitely radically shifted our social construct.
I think that’s one reason - when people say “all this talk online does nothing” - but this is the last marketplace of ideas we have. This is where we have left to organize. So like-minded people have to find each other somehow, and then hopefully organize on the local, regional, national levels. Because we need to organize to have protests. And protests need to happen until everyone sees there are enough of us that demand change that we can enforce that demand. So it’s like an effort that must be ramped up, and talking online is the critical foundation for that, even though it’s useless until we get there.