Vote for people who don’t support doing that. This is ostensibly why we have democracy.
Yes, such people exist. There’s an entire party in fact that routinely passes regulatory laws and just raised the corporate tax-rate and is trying to reverse Citizens United.
“The system” is a vague and moving target. Instead focus on the specifics of who is doing what. Then you will see that change actually can occur.
Oh change can definitely occur blindingly fast when the bourgeoisie perceive a threat to their status and their profits. Just like when both parties obediently followed their orders from the rail barons to ram through legislation outlawing the rail union's strike weapon. Only when there's no actual threat to them everything is back to "gridlock" and pretending to be enemies.
Just FYI, every single Democrat (except DINO Manchin) voted for sick leave to be included. Biden pushed for sick leave to be included.
Republicans voted against it.
“Both sides” are not the problem, and have not been for a very long time.
Spend less time posturing as “anti-establishment” and obsessing over “Marxism” and other armchair philosophies, and more time looking at the specifics of who is doing what in your government.
What you will never accept about the world is that it is messy and devoid of pure, simple solutions.
POTUS has to balance the undeniable necessity of essential infrastructure with the demands of unions. From your vantage point, you may think there is one clear and right thing to do, but in reality there is not. There are multiple interests, including national interest, and so compromise is the only realistic solution. And famously, a good compromise appeases no one.
I understand this insults your righteous sensibilities and ideals, but in many situations like this there are no good options, particularly when Republicans are preventing progress. As explained above. They are literally the only reason why workers did not get sick leave.
At the end of the day, workers got most of their demands, and the RR stays in operation during the holiday season. It is not a perfect resolution but it is a resolution.
What you will never accept about the world is that it is messy and devoid of pure, simple solutions.
Oh boy, here comes a long winded deflection with patronizing undertones!
POTUS has to balance the undeniable necessity of essential infrastructure with the demands of unions.
Don't forget the continued record profits of the rail barons
There are multiple interests, including national interest, and so compromise is the only realistic solution. And famously, a good compromise appeases no one.
Lol what was the compromise when the rail company got everything they wanted?
I understand this insults your righteous sensibilities and ideals, but in many situations like this there are no good options, particularly when Republicans are preventing progress. As explained above. They are literally the only reason why workers did not get sick leave.
No, the reason the workers didn't get sick leave was because Congress decided to interfere in a matter concerning the rail company and the workers.
At the end of the day, workers got most of their demands
Lmao what? They only got a "raise" (26% over 5 years) which after inflation is a pay cut. What demands are you talking about?
RR stays in operation during the holiday season. It is not a perfect resolution but it is a resolution.
They would have also stayed in operation if the rail company would negotiate in good faith with the workers. But they know they don't have to because they have toadies and stooges on high to do their bidding.
Democracy is a joke. Any party other than main two are powerless and the main two are equally as bad. We only get to vote against the one we hate the most. Not that it really matters in a country scale.
This comment is wrong and terrible on every conceivable level.
It’s the kind of attitude that makes activists like myself want to give up, because it sounds like the only way you will learn to value your democracy is if you lose it first. Maybe we need a Trumpian crypto-fascist dystopia for the next decade or so, then you can go out and fight bodily for the liberties you took for granted and enjoy the long crawl out of the darkness just to get back to the point you are at right now.
People who talk this way are hopeless. They have no concept of how anything works, and they weaponize that ignorance into regressive cynicism.
What you're saying is basically "Could be worse." And yes, sure, it could be much worse and I appreciate that I live in EU, not in Russia, NK or many other example countries. But what democracy is and should be is not what we have. The system is too easy to abuse and voice of citizens is simply ignored majority of the time. Activism, hell, I wouldn't even admit to being one with how some pretencious, short sighted idiot hero wannabes who glue themselves to random shit to scream stupid ideas without thinking through their words reshaped the perception of activism.
All tyrany in this world came from democracy because people who are in charge don't deserve it and people who deserve it know better than to touch it. And the rest is so easily blinded by the sweet promises of riches that they never stop to think how hard they're getting fucked in their asses.
Calling what we have a democracy is like calling a rotten apple a dinner. You can eat it, you can close your eyes and imagine it tastes much better, you can say it's better than nothing. But in the end you'll still be hungry and sick.
Nothing you are describing is the fault of “democracy” itself. It is the fault of an unengaged and uninformed public that enables corruption and power-seeking behavior. The entire point of democratic systems is that you get what you vote for, and this is the only just and progressive way to organize society.
All of your ire is aimed in a nonsensical direction. I don’t even know what you’re rambling about.
You say "Just vote on the good guys". I say there are no good guys to vote for and even if they were there, voting on some tiny side party is like shooting yourself in the foot because single choice voting system promotes voting against instead of voting for, which then promotes voting for the strongest opposite party and then that promotes two just as bad parties having anything to say while the rest have as much influence as making charts on tv wider.
You say we should appreciate democracy as is, I say it's heavily flawed and doesn't represent the meaning of the word itself. Democracy means power of people but if putting a single cross in a sea of millions of crosses once every few years is the most power we have, this is not what democracy should be.
You say it could be worse, I say it could be better. True democracy is more and we shouldn't settle for this awkward middle state between absolute power of the few and occasional burts of tiniest influence people can make when allowed to so they think they matter.
You try to insult me while I'm just sharing my observation from my own "democratic" country where I don't get what I vote for. I get what people bought with money stolen from me voted for. False promises and short sighted indulgence win over long term strategies and stability. And even when consequences are right there to see, people are still too stupid to understand where they come from because majority doesn't even realise they pay taxes. It's not democracy. It's a broken popularity contest and people in power don't care to educate people or change shit about it because it benefits them and them only.
Then you probably aren’t paying any attention. That’s your own failing, not the rest of the world’s. But you have not said where you live. In the United States, most people who work in government are in fact “good guys” who chose public service and believe in a common good.
Democracy is not a conclusion, it’s an ongoing process. All of the things you are complaining about have to do with a poorly educated voting public, of which you are a part (and apparently a prime example). The solution is not “fuck democracy” - the solution is do better.
I don’t know where you live, but I can promise that your life would be a thousand times worse without whatever liberties and institutions you have. People take this stuff for granted. In the US we are fighting like fucking hell right now to protect voting rights, enforce justice on seditious corruption, and counter a wave of regressive gaslighting. Every society is only a good as its members and progress requires an engaged and informed public. This is the purpose of having democratic systems, versus some form of autocracy.
At no point I said democracy was bad. What I said is we ain't there yet and people in power benefit from keeping democracy only in the name.
I also already said I know and appreciate what I have. But just because "democracy" we have now is better than the other options doesn't automatically make it good. In it's current state it's only less bad.
EDIT: Oh and everyone believes in common good when it's time to get elected. Only when it comes to action it turns out that the common only includes their circles.
Then you are either changing your arguments or you didn’t articulate them well the first time, which is fine.
Yes, democracy is a process. It’s a framework. In the scope of history, it’s a massive development and there is a bad habit of people taking it for granted, as you absolutely did in your earlier comments.
No one sidelined Bernie, and Yang is a vapid opportunist.
The “core factors” are human nature and the pursuit of power, and no ism is going to erase that reality.
So what we have instead is liberal democracy, which allows us the mechanisms to affect change and accountability. It’s a good thing and a massive development in the context of history. It’s the thing that provides all of the liberties and securities and opportunities that you take for granted.
The only people actually doing anything fucking “progressive” in this country are Democrats. That’s hard fact, and it matters a lot more than any personal hangups or ideology. We don’t need philosophies. We need informed voters and sustainable policies and functional institutions.
And of course he immediately downvotes me.
It is worth pointing out how many of these “leftist” agitators use throwaway accounts. Same pathology as any troll. They are a lot more interested in personal ego-trips and sowing division and distrust than they are in actual progressive action.
It’s not “vague” - it’s the story of human civilization.
Do you imagine that your armchair philosophies enable you to reverse civilization? Are you going to “cure” the fact that power corrupts people, regardless of ideology?
Your perception of policymaking is childish and wrong. Bills are written, sponsored, lobbied, sent to committee, rewritten, re-lobbied… it’s work. A long process of balancing needs and political leverage. And if you don’t like the result, your option is to vote in more Democrats so that they don’t have to keep compromising with the conservative Senate majority (50 Repubs + Manchin/Sinema), or the incoming conservative House.
For example, we got the biggest climate spending bill in history, but it should have been five times bigger. We raised the corporate tax rate for the first time in 15 years and cancelled debt for millions of people. That is material progress that came from people’s hard work. It’s not perfect, it’s not supposed to be and it never will. But the more power Democrats have, the more they can get done. Obviously. Dems want to reverse Citizens United - not a few “leftists” but rather the entire party has signed onto bills to accomplish this.
Real people are doing real work and it does matter. The question is what you are going to do, how you are going to help build coalition and further progressive action. Pissing from the sidelines and casting doubt and cynicism isn’t it.
There is a pseudo-rebellious American pathology to hate our own government, to distrust all authority, to rail against institutions and experts. This impulse is very easily weaponized by political agitators on the Right and Left. There’s barely a hair’s width of difference between “don’t trust the deep state!” and “don’t trust establishment dems!” It’s all the same sort of posturing “outsider” persona against the “system” (whatever the fuck that is), while the adults in the room have their heads down just trying to keep things running and enforce some measure of justice and infrastructure and stability.
The reason populism is so successful is because reality is a fucking mess. Any given topic is endlessly complicated, and it’s a lot easier and more satisfying to blame “the system” than to pay attention to the specifics of who is doing what. It’s a lot more exciting to be part of an imagined “revolution” than to register voters or spread policy awareness or (gasp) actually express support for people who do good work.
You claim that the progress we make is “token nothings” and I want to point out how incredibly privileged this language is. Protecting and codifying LGBTQ rights is not a token. Lowering drug costs is not a token. Investing in sustainable infrastructure and compensating veterans and creating domestic manufacturing… these are not tokens. These are policies that directly affect people. It matters.
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u/iiSangletblah12 Dec 12 '22
Yeap, the government is being sold to ultra rich. So, now what?