I mean.
Voters are pawns for political parties, but their understanding of the world is guided by their media. Political parties pretend to be autonomous, but their funding largely comes from corporations.
Media (social and otherwise) is controlled under a handful of large corporations. (The TikTok ban was not about China, it was about corporate governance and the ability of TikTok to sway public opinion.) The U.S. system of government ensures only two possible political parties can exist, and outside efforts cannot succeed.
The net result is that voters have no real ability to affect the outcome of our governance. Nor are the lawmakers inclined to change the system in ways that would harm their political party or their corporate patrons.
This has been the status quo for decades.
The only reason this is now a topic of conversation is because there’s a concerted effort to take the U.S. off the world stage by destabilizing it internally through both tearing apart the social fabric, but also destroying the very flawed but stable political system with fascism.
I’m not sure there is a war to win, for the citizenry, at least.
Not merely the USA, as e.g. Brexit shows - this is happening everywhere, across the majority of the world stage, and in a targeted manner especially the Western nations. Even before Putin, things were set in motion, and we knew it at the time even yet did nothing to halt it, like a cancer growing or a virus infection, and because it presents as “us” we leave it alone, until it is ready to burst out and reveal its true intentions, when hiding is no longer necessary. To illustrate, one example seems to be the creation of Fox News, but surely that is not the only such thing.
Right now the one that comes to mind is the voucher systems for schools.
Channeling public money into private schools. It drains the education system.
As Reagan’s dismantling of the mental health system showed - once you destroy a public service, you can’t really rebuild it. The buildings are gone, the land repurposed. Now there’s a ‘homeless crisis’ as people do not get adequate care to participate in society.
And when our core populous is educated with a corporate agenda or a religious agenda, who will be capable of upholding the U.S. on the world stage? Will we innovate? Will we keep up military?
Rail transit in the 50’s and 60’s, followed by privatization of buses - leading to mass pollution, economic waste, segregated communities, and a divided society.
Bans on research, or underfunding public research, allowing corporations to tell us that cigarettes, PFAS, PCBS, BPA, Glyphosate, and all number of substances we consume(d) daily are safe. Leaning to massive public health issues.
Cuts to social safety nets, the attacks on the library system, Trump-era underfunding of the IRS, banning the post office from providing banking/passing laws and appointing people who specifically are trying to destroy the postal service, repeal of the FCC fairness doctrine - I could go on, but … sigh.
I think I need to hug my wife. I’m glad we aren’t having kids.
YOUR kids would, I suspect, be better off than most kids in the USA - bc having parents that actually give a damn helps so much:-).
Will we keep up military?
^This right there - this is about all that we have going for us. We provide protection and direct services, which isn’t nothing, nor is it never improperly abused (more’s the pity), but it is something. Otherwise, what, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter/X - these are the “innovations” that we share with the world? Along with Hollywood and whatever art like fashion we can get people to care about?
Anyway, things look bleak right now - bc, you know, they are:-D - but also remember: our media lies to us. Constantly. “If it bleeds it leads”, but conversely all the dry boring stuff simply doesn’t get reported, which is a travesty. Like how Biden made happen a MAJOR breakthrough in railway workers, taking six months of negotiations but eventually delivering everything that they asked for iirc including scheduling issues and PTO and sick leave (the dedicated latter is minimal but the former is flexible and can be used for anything) - that’s hella impressive, and considering how no other president has done such for railway workers specifically addressed a huge gaping hole in our nation’s infrastructure, with that form of transportation being so crucial to us all, mostly in ways we don’t even take any time at all to think about. And yet what did the media say about it? So when they preach doom & gloom for like climate change and the economy, setting aside how those are truly accurate, keep in mind that it’s also extremely biased.
Things won’t be the same as before - they won’t be as good as when life was easy. And maybe that’s for the better even bc damn did the generation that is putting us into this mess get complacent and entitled. But we’ll move forward regardless. And it’s not all bad - e.g. all the fantastic medical breakthroughs, which keeps happening even if they are for like highly specific diseases, yet for those that have them it makes all the difference, and also every advance helps scientists learn and makes possible future ones. 😁
The U.S. system of government ensures only two possible political parties can exist, and outside efforts cannot succeed.
The net result is that voters have no real ability to affect the outcome of our governance. Nor are the lawmakers inclined to change the system in ways that would harm their political party or their corporate patrons.
Hard disagree on both points. Change is still possible but it has to come from the ground up, showing up once every 4 years isn’t how citizenry should act.
Nor are the lawmakers inclined to change the system in ways that would harm their political party or their corporate patrons.
Agree.
I’m not sure there is a war to win, for the citizenry, at least.
Oh there very much is and the rightwing figured it out 70 years ago.
Every scenario I come up with is foiled by voter suppression measures, micro-targeted ads, influence campaigns, and systemic blocks.
At my most hopeful, I think that perhaps maximally, some of the national issues can be addressed at the state level via ballot initiatives - but that won’t change the federal government. And ballot initiatives move glacially slow compared to legislators who can change the rules and make ballot initiatives nigh impossible.
By voting in liberal democrats - like Obama? Who abandoned his promises once he had power, because resolving issues like abortion is less motivating to voters than using them as wedge issues? Of course, if they vote Democrat, that’s assuming their liberal candidates can rise through the ranks to gain power, vs like, a candidate that is a former Bush CIA torture operative, that is so hated by her constituents that when the district she was in got redrawn to include a better liked (and more liberal) candidate, she moved into the house of a lobbyist to run somewhere she wouldn’t get primaried. And then - when a senate seat opened, The Partyemplaced her there by negotiating more liberal, better liked candidates out of the primary, so she can do to America what Manchin and Synema did the last time democrats had a majority.
By voting in third party candidates? Who lack conmity in their local dealings, who only gain that if they manage to elect enough people to gain local power? Which will split the power of the party closest to their political views under our two party system and ensure endless game theory discussions until that third party loses strength to go back into the shadows?
I’d like to see the rise of a “New Left” much as we (unfortunately) saw the rise of the New Right after Goldwaters defeat in 1964. We need actual, grassroots organization of the various leftwing interests, all politics is local. My state has actually been very successful with ballot initiatives, but you’re right that they’re trying to make them more difficult.
I don’t have all the answers but I do know that we’re not done yet. Honestly the rightwing thinktanks and various grassroots organizations behind the current iteration of The Right has about a 50 year head start, I’m not sure we’ll be able to fix the mess in any less time.
So what happened to the left then, for it to have become so hopelessly inept? HRC was extremely disconnected from any irl people, but so are all such wealthy individuals who don’t live in the same world that the rest of us mere slobs humans do - is it really just a function that her campaign manager was not as good as the efforts put forth from the other side, similarly to how legal battles are won by lawyers rather than actual matters of substance like facts? It certainly doesn’t help that various outside actors got involved - with the numerous and exceedingly severe “email scandals”, but even aside from those she really seemed to be struggling with campaigning.
What it feels like is two giants fighting - the elites (and I think you know but to be absolutely clear, not the paper masks that they wear like “Biden” or “Trump”) - while the rest of us poor chumps get stepped on as they do. Which is obviously true, but somehow not fully, either, bc the true giants don’t even care (much) who wins bc they have the system so rigged that they win either way. The latter we could not begin to fight, but we may actually get to choose our own brand of toothpaste, if we work hard enough at it. And women’s rights seems like it is something up for grabs that way?
Especially, and this is the crucial part of my point, at the local level - at least currently, until the conservative politicians decide that they need another win and take that as well. While we argue amongst ourselves but do actually nothing to stop it.
I’d suggest the actual left has largely not participatied in politics in several decades and a milquetoast “moderate” Democratic party has allowed the assemblage of Right Wing Interests (who have aligned and mobilized since 1970) to roll back the actual progress of FDRs New Deal. Now would be an ideal time to mobilize and start running for city councils and schoolboards.
Without having heard the podcast yet, I can assume that the conservatives won by actually trying, aka giving a damn about winning. They listened to their base - okay so abortion is bad, check, also gays are bad, check, etc. - then went on an enormous campaign that lasted for decades as you said, until they finally fucking delivered on what they promised… or some facsimile thereof. And now that they did, some conservative folks are finally questioning whether it was a good thing after all… but anyway the most important stuff of all got taken care of: tax cuts on the wealthy, check; also owning the libturds, check.
Trump goes to jail? Who cares, they still banned abortions. The nation slides into a totalitarian regime? So long as gays are prevented from marrying one another, that still counts as a win! OMG I wish I were joking!! 🤮 But that is reality, and conservatives are facing it.
Whereas if Hillary Clinton had faced it, maybe she would have campaigned a bit harder in Midwestern states, rather than merely make comments about liking grits and carrying hot sauce in her purse.
Anyway as you said, run for city councils and schoolboards. Conservatives do that, based on their alternative facts, but liberals with our actual true facts usually seem to not bother, at which point ofc they will win, by default - that’s just how that works, especially when someone runs unopposed. We may talk about UBI or whatever, and some exceedingly rare instances are able to give such things a try, but for the most part it’s the slow grind, the basic gains, the slow and steady progress that wins the race. Maybe we can (re-)learn what we seem to have forgotten from ye olden decades by watching modern conservatives.
As the great man Jon Stewart once said (in reference to media), “liberals aim to be correct, while conservatives aim to be effective”. I don’t fully know what that means, except FAAFO, as we are always doing right now, at every moment.
I mean.
Voters are pawns for political parties, but their understanding of the world is guided by their media. Political parties pretend to be autonomous, but their funding largely comes from corporations.
Media (social and otherwise) is controlled under a handful of large corporations. (The TikTok ban was not about China, it was about corporate governance and the ability of TikTok to sway public opinion.) The U.S. system of government ensures only two possible political parties can exist, and outside efforts cannot succeed.
The net result is that voters have no real ability to affect the outcome of our governance. Nor are the lawmakers inclined to change the system in ways that would harm their political party or their corporate patrons.
This has been the status quo for decades.
The only reason this is now a topic of conversation is because there’s a concerted effort to take the U.S. off the world stage by destabilizing it internally through both tearing apart the social fabric, but also destroying the very flawed but stable political system with fascism.
I’m not sure there is a war to win, for the citizenry, at least.
Not merely the USA, as e.g. Brexit shows - this is happening everywhere, across the majority of the world stage, and in a targeted manner especially the Western nations. Even before Putin, things were set in motion, and we knew it at the time even yet did nothing to halt it, like a cancer growing or a virus infection, and because it presents as “us” we leave it alone, until it is ready to burst out and reveal its true intentions, when hiding is no longer necessary. To illustrate, one example seems to be the creation of Fox News, but surely that is not the only such thing.
Right now the one that comes to mind is the voucher systems for schools.
Channeling public money into private schools. It drains the education system.
As Reagan’s dismantling of the mental health system showed - once you destroy a public service, you can’t really rebuild it. The buildings are gone, the land repurposed. Now there’s a ‘homeless crisis’ as people do not get adequate care to participate in society.
And when our core populous is educated with a corporate agenda or a religious agenda, who will be capable of upholding the U.S. on the world stage? Will we innovate? Will we keep up military?
Rail transit in the 50’s and 60’s, followed by privatization of buses - leading to mass pollution, economic waste, segregated communities, and a divided society.
Bans on research, or underfunding public research, allowing corporations to tell us that cigarettes, PFAS, PCBS, BPA, Glyphosate, and all number of substances we consume(d) daily are safe. Leaning to massive public health issues.
Cuts to social safety nets, the attacks on the library system, Trump-era underfunding of the IRS, banning the post office from providing banking/passing laws and appointing people who specifically are trying to destroy the postal service, repeal of the FCC fairness doctrine - I could go on, but … sigh.
I think I need to hug my wife. I’m glad we aren’t having kids.
YOUR kids would, I suspect, be better off than most kids in the USA - bc having parents that actually give a damn helps so much:-).
^This right there - this is about all that we have going for us. We provide protection and direct services, which isn’t nothing, nor is it never improperly abused (more’s the pity), but it is something. Otherwise, what, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter/X - these are the “innovations” that we share with the world? Along with Hollywood and whatever art like fashion we can get people to care about?
Anyway, things look bleak right now - bc, you know, they are:-D - but also remember: our media lies to us. Constantly. “If it bleeds it leads”, but conversely all the dry boring stuff simply doesn’t get reported, which is a travesty. Like how Biden made happen a MAJOR breakthrough in railway workers, taking six months of negotiations but eventually delivering everything that they asked for iirc including scheduling issues and PTO and sick leave (the dedicated latter is minimal but the former is flexible and can be used for anything) - that’s hella impressive, and considering how no other president has done such for railway workers specifically addressed a huge gaping hole in our nation’s infrastructure, with that form of transportation being so crucial to us all, mostly in ways we don’t even take any time at all to think about. And yet what did the media say about it? So when they preach doom & gloom for like climate change and the economy, setting aside how those are truly accurate, keep in mind that it’s also extremely biased.
Things won’t be the same as before - they won’t be as good as when life was easy. And maybe that’s for the better even bc damn did the generation that is putting us into this mess get complacent and entitled. But we’ll move forward regardless. And it’s not all bad - e.g. all the fantastic medical breakthroughs, which keeps happening even if they are for like highly specific diseases, yet for those that have them it makes all the difference, and also every advance helps scientists learn and makes possible future ones. 😁
I admire and appreciate your optimism and sentiments.
Hard disagree on both points. Change is still possible but it has to come from the ground up, showing up once every 4 years isn’t how citizenry should act.
Agree.
Oh there very much is and the rightwing figured it out 70 years ago.
How do you envision change happening?
Every scenario I come up with is foiled by voter suppression measures, micro-targeted ads, influence campaigns, and systemic blocks.
At my most hopeful, I think that perhaps maximally, some of the national issues can be addressed at the state level via ballot initiatives - but that won’t change the federal government. And ballot initiatives move glacially slow compared to legislators who can change the rules and make ballot initiatives nigh impossible.
By voting in liberal democrats - like Obama? Who abandoned his promises once he had power, because resolving issues like abortion is less motivating to voters than using them as wedge issues? Of course, if they vote Democrat, that’s assuming their liberal candidates can rise through the ranks to gain power, vs like, a candidate that is a former Bush CIA torture operative, that is so hated by her constituents that when the district she was in got redrawn to include a better liked (and more liberal) candidate, she moved into the house of a lobbyist to run somewhere she wouldn’t get primaried. And then - when a senate seat opened, The Party emplaced her there by negotiating more liberal, better liked candidates out of the primary, so she can do to America what Manchin and Synema did the last time democrats had a majority.
By voting in third party candidates? Who lack conmity in their local dealings, who only gain that if they manage to elect enough people to gain local power? Which will split the power of the party closest to their political views under our two party system and ensure endless game theory discussions until that third party loses strength to go back into the shadows?
I just… don’t have hope today. Maybe tomorrow.
I’d like to see the rise of a “New Left” much as we (unfortunately) saw the rise of the New Right after Goldwaters defeat in 1964. We need actual, grassroots organization of the various leftwing interests, all politics is local. My state has actually been very successful with ballot initiatives, but you’re right that they’re trying to make them more difficult.
I don’t have all the answers but I do know that we’re not done yet. Honestly the rightwing thinktanks and various grassroots organizations behind the current iteration of The Right has about a 50 year head start, I’m not sure we’ll be able to fix the mess in any less time.
So what happened to the left then, for it to have become so hopelessly inept? HRC was extremely disconnected from any irl people, but so are all such wealthy individuals who don’t live in the same world that the rest of us mere
slobshumans do - is it really just a function that her campaign manager was not as good as the efforts put forth from the other side, similarly to how legal battles are won by lawyers rather than actual matters of substance like facts? It certainly doesn’t help that various outside actors got involved - with the numerous and exceedingly severe “email scandals”, but even aside from those she really seemed to be struggling with campaigning.What it feels like is two giants fighting - the elites (and I think you know but to be absolutely clear, not the paper masks that they wear like “Biden” or “Trump”) - while the rest of us poor chumps get stepped on as they do. Which is obviously true, but somehow not fully, either, bc the true giants don’t even care (much) who wins bc they have the system so rigged that they win either way. The latter we could not begin to fight, but we may actually get to choose our own brand of toothpaste, if we work hard enough at it. And women’s rights seems like it is something up for grabs that way?
Especially, and this is the crucial part of my point, at the local level - at least currently, until the conservative politicians decide that they need another win and take that as well. While we argue amongst ourselves but do actually nothing to stop it.
I’d suggest the actual left has largely not participatied in politics in several decades and a milquetoast “moderate” Democratic party has allowed the assemblage of Right Wing Interests (who have aligned and mobilized since 1970) to roll back the actual progress of FDRs New Deal. Now would be an ideal time to mobilize and start running for city councils and schoolboards.
Robert Evans has a very enlightening 2-part podcast called “How Conservatism Won,” ideally we’d emulate the Edwin Feulners and Paul Weyriches, but with progressive ideals.
edit: wording
Without having heard the podcast yet, I can assume that the conservatives won by actually trying, aka giving a damn about winning. They listened to their base - okay so abortion is bad, check, also gays are bad, check, etc. - then went on an enormous campaign that lasted for decades as you said, until they finally fucking delivered on what they promised… or some facsimile thereof. And now that they did, some conservative folks are finally questioning whether it was a good thing after all… but anyway the most important stuff of all got taken care of: tax cuts on the wealthy, check; also owning the libturds, check.
Trump goes to jail? Who cares, they still banned abortions. The nation slides into a totalitarian regime? So long as gays are prevented from marrying one another, that still counts as a win! OMG I wish I were joking!! 🤮 But that is reality, and conservatives are facing it.
Whereas if Hillary Clinton had faced it, maybe she would have campaigned a bit harder in Midwestern states, rather than merely make comments about liking grits and carrying hot sauce in her purse.
Anyway as you said, run for city councils and schoolboards. Conservatives do that, based on their alternative facts, but liberals with our actual true facts usually seem to not bother, at which point ofc they will win, by default - that’s just how that works, especially when someone runs unopposed. We may talk about UBI or whatever, and some exceedingly rare instances are able to give such things a try, but for the most part it’s the slow grind, the basic gains, the slow and steady progress that wins the race. Maybe we can (re-)learn what we seem to have forgotten from ye olden decades by watching modern conservatives.
As the great man Jon Stewart once said (in reference to media), “liberals aim to be correct, while conservatives aim to be effective”. I don’t fully know what that means, except FAAFO, as we are always doing right now, at every moment.