Fairly successful strategy I’ve been using lately is to out-crazy the red team and feed em their own medicine. No one here needs to be told the libertarian party is just Far Right Lite™, but do you know their selling points? Cuz there is no chance in HELL I’ll be able to convince a Trumpanzee to vote for Biden, but I have been able to steer a handful of votes away from Trump and toward Chase Oliver - usually goes down like this: MAGAt will open the conversation by bitching about someone on the blue team - such as Hillary and her emails. I’ll AGREE with them, but lump her and Trump into the same category… “Idk how they get away with sending classified data on a private email server or printing it out and hauling boxes of it to their private residence. If I did hundredth of the crime Trump or Hillary committed, I’d spend the rest of my life in jail!”. Bitch about how both parties are doing the bare minimum just to stay in power etc; then start pitching 3rd as an alternative option.
‘Both sides’ em, and change their vote to “not trump” by pitching whichever 3rd most closely aligns with their impressionability (which is pretty much always the LP). Put the spoiler effect to good use.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit or encouraging apathy because of the shit debate.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit or encouraging apathy because of the shit debate.
I’m already quite weary of that!
(“Weary” means tired; you probably meant “wary” which means cautious)
I’m weary and wary of all this.
Came in to say this lol. Previous poster is right on my intent and correction, but god damn am I tired of this Nazi shit.
Don’t worry.
Poor you. You think Biden’s victims are weary? He’s killed up to one hundred thousand innocent people in agonising ways, and you’re weary of him being described as what he is.
Shame on you.
So, Trump is better? Yeah, we know he sucks. We also know Trump is far, far worse. But you know this, don’t you?
What is your plan, exactly? By not voting Biden, you help Trump, and he WILL directly cause far more death and suffering.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit
You’ve seen the broken, burnt, limbless and decapitated bodies of twenty-thousand plus dead children, live-tweeted into your living room for nine months and it isn’t enough for you to stop supporting the man principally responsible for it.
You’re not “defeating fascism”, you are a fascist.
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Backing genocide isn’t better.
There is no harm-reduction past a certain point, there is just throwing vulnerable people under the bus to save yourself.
I honestly have no idea what the logic is supposed to be here?
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!? It makes absolutely no sense.
We can talk in 2028 when we actually have a say again in who is running, but as it stands now we’re stuck with who is up there now.
No, we’re not.
The convention hasn’t happened yet.
Finally, the logic is simple. Biden is a genocidal fascist. If you’re afraid that we will live in a fascist state if Trump is elected, then my answer is we already do.
If Trump is elected and goes full fascist, what do you plan on doing? Whatever it is, you should already be doing it.
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!? It makes absolutely no sense.
Resisting fascism and genocide isn’t about virtue. It’s about survival. You’ve been conned into believing that if you just vote for the lesser genocidal fascist, then you or whatever oppressed group you identify with will be fine. You will not.
This well known poem
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for meis about you.
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!?
Translation: “I’ve already acquiesced to the idea that one way or the other, the flag I eagerly uplift is going to literally inflict genocide upon a sovereign nation for natural gas resources and the allowance of an illegitimate, blatantly-supremacist nationstate to build itself atop those sovereign bodies the exact same way Amerika did to the natives, and I see nothing wrong with that so long as my comfort is preserved”
You and everyone like you fucking disgust me. Death to the settler empire, worse to those who uplift it.
We can talk in 2028 when we actually have a say again in who is running,
“just one more genocider guys I swear, just one more mass murderer; just four more years of settler bullshit” y’all run this exact same play every four fucking years like clockwork you disgust me. I can smell the compatibility on you you dog
Oh fuck off. I have no real options here. I vote against the establishment asshole every primary I get.
Do you organize with an actual party with revolutionary (not reformist) politics? Have you ever cut a check for a political prisoner’s bond, bail, or commissary? Perform any kind of community mutual aid? If not, this “oh fuck off” is petulance as impotent as the only thing you claim you do, and deeply unserious as far as any real response could be considered.
So you recognise that the system is the problem. You even think there’s a gun to your head forcing you to participate. You don’t need to take part in it. Taking part of choosing complicity.
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at least I’m not a Russian rent boy.
You think this is worse than being a genocidal fascist. Says everything.
Genocide-collaborator liberals and unaddressed homophobia, name a more iconic combo
What else do you call someone complicit in the genocide of a sovereign nation for the sole purpose of furthering a blatantly-supremacist regime? Other than Amerikan, I mean?
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They each served one term. Just compare their actions.
Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit, created a 13 million acre federal petroleum reserve for Alaskan wildlife, greatly increased oil site lease cost, signed $7B in solar subsidies, invested $66B in passenger rail, enacted the Inflation Reduction act to support clean energy, increased energy efficiency standards on cars, appliances, and industry, created new permitting rules to streamline transmission lines, leveraged the NLRB for an FTC ruling that eliminated non-compete agreements, capped credit card late fees, reduced or outlawed junk fees in several industries, forgave billions in student debt from predatory loans, created the CHIPS Act to improve reliance on domestic technology, reenacted Net Neutrality, repealed Title 42, ended the Muslim Ban, reinstated the law prohibiting Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory, signed the Equality Act for LGBTQ+ rights, restored gay rights to beneficiaries, pardoned thousands of gay veterans from being convicted based on their sexual orientation, reenacted trans care anti-discrimination law, signed the Respect for Marriage Act, enabled unspecified gender on US Passports, rejoined WHO, banned medical debt from credit reports, currently rescheduling marijuana, is actively reducing drug costs with the American Rescue Plan Act…
Trump repealed 112 climate regulations, left the Paris Climate Agreement, disbanded the pandemic response team stalling national pandemic response, left the WHO, repealed trans care anti-discrimination law, repealed gay rights to beneficiaries, enacted Title 42 and the Muslim ban, repealed the law prohibiting Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, repealed Net Neutrality, provided tax cuts to the wealthy that further widened our already exploitative wealth inequality, increased tariffs on goods costing the consumers, seated the conservatives in SCOTUS that repealed Roe v. Wade…
Never let it be forgotten that Roe v. Wade was struck down during a Democrat administration.
And that klansman-adjacent segregationist will never be forgiven for the '94 Crime Bill; beyond that, he still hasn’t ended the 1033 Program, hasn’t ended the reckless militarization of lynch-mob police, hasn’t pardoned the 61 political prisoners in Atlanta facing federal RICO charges for protesting Genocide Joe’s pet project Cop Cities. He ain’t our ally, no matter how many little puff pieces of legislation he pushes of the lapdogs, bootlickers, and nepo-babies that do nothing to rectify the shit-sorry state of Amerika’s material conditions.
What was it y’all slandered that imperial sheepdog Bernie for? Your boy Brandon might as well have renamed a post office for all the good he’s doing the subjects-of-empire. I don’t give the first fuck about the lapdogs of imperialism getting their scraps, where the fuck is the equality and actual liberation that doesn’t require tapdancing like a minstrel for genocidal settlers?
Never let it be forgotten that Roe v. Wade was struck down during a Democrat administration
Ok, but what does that have to do with said denocrat administration? What say did they have in the matter? What could they have done to change the outcome?
If you absolutely had to stay loyal to the Democrat party for some reason, he could’ve packed the courts like the democrats that call themselves “progressive” were telling him to do from day one of his administration, which said “progressives” were told it was ‘bad form’. Hell, Democrats have been using Roe v. Wade and similar protective legislation for women as carrots to dangle in front of the electorate ever since the Drone King; remember how the Violence Against Women act was supposed to be one of that minstrel’s priorities during his first hundred days, only for it to become “no longer a priority” after he got his seat?
But the correct answer would have been to divest from the party. To have made it clear that literal fucking genocide is the red line of any actual human with an actually-international slate of morals. To walk away, and make them earn your support– which you and those like you will never do, because you’re spineless dogs waiting for the next table scraps to fall from the genocider’s plate.
You, and everyone like you chose wrong; in unforgivable ways. I eagerly await your society’s collapse, me and the rest of the subjects-of-empire y’all tread on day-in, and day-out.
I’m not even american, so I’m not sure what you arw on about right now. All I asked was how Roe v. Wade being repealed was Biden’s fault, and the answer apparently is that he did not pack the court.
How genocide fits into Roe v. Wade, or how callling me names somehow helps I’m still unsure of.
All I asked was how Roe v. Wade being repealed was Biden’s fault, and the answer apparently is that he did not pack the court.
Didn’t pursue codification into law in his first hundred days just like the Drone King failed to do so with the Violence against Women Act; didn’t make use of the fact that the Constitution makes no limits on how many supreme court justices can exist on the bench at one time while he had an iron clad majority at the start of his administration, and now has the TEMERITY to use it as one of the new cudgels for this election cycle. “Oh, we’ll definitely codify it into law THIS time” yeah sure that’s what was said about VAWA.
I spit on him, I spit on everybody who runs interference for him, I spit on everybody who bears his water. The reason genocide comes up is because THAT IS WHAT HE IS. With his arming and tacit support of Israel, he is the same kind of genocidal trash Netanyahu and the rest of the IDF are; and that fact actually matters more to me than Amerikans and the health and well-being of such. The fact that the people who still want me to see them as my countrymen have accepted genocide as a negotiable disgusts me so goddamn much that I don’t even see anyone who does so as human anymore.
And because you’re out here running interference for that cracker, I see you no different. Give a fuck where you come from; if you’re ‘not’ Amerikan, fuck are you running your mouth like one? Keep your mark ass out the process.
Didn’t pursue codification into law in his first hundred days j
As (again) a non-american, doesn’t that require both chambers to support the legislation?
Striking down Roe v Wade was not an act of the Democrat administration. It was struck down by a Republican supreme court.
A republican supreme court he could have simply packed. I thought he had enough moderates to forcibly bump up the number of justices, what’s good? Don’t have all that backup that you tell us you have? At that point the court wouldn’t have been republican-controlled; but I guess the democrat party makes more money losing than they do shaking off their martyr complex and actually putting in work for the people that got them elected.
But y’know, the Democrat party’s genocide-enablers and the Toms that mislead for them keep telling us they don’t need the actual left in this country. You made your bed; now fuckin die in it.
I don’t think Manchin and Sinema would go for court packing. And I’d count on zero republicans to vote with that. Who exactly are these moderates you were thinking of?
Every single peckerwood that persecuted the squad, all those genocide-enablers Biden would’ve rather worked with to ship ammo, weapons, and assorted materiel to an illegitimate supremacist state, y’know, those so-called “moderates”. What’s good, you-- [gasp] didn’t have the support you thought you did? Color me shocked.
Almost like when your party repeatedly, routinely disavows the only part of the nation’s political system that thinks forward, you lose your chances for everything from legislation to re-election!
Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? I’m saying those moderates don’t exist, that that support doesn’t exist for packing the court. You’re blaming me for saying they do exist, and that the support for packing the court wasn’t there when I said it was? But I didn’t fucking say that support was there dumbass.
You forgot the genocide.
They didn’t ‘forget’ the genocide; they think all that small paltry shit for the imperialist lapdogs papers over genocide.
He’s a literal Nazi judging by his comment history. No wonder he supports an American presidential candidate.
As the crowd grew, a few protesters began spray painting a statue and throwing smoke bombs, obviously discrediting to the cause
Oh, he’s one of those peckerwoods. “You only get to protest in ways that don’t draw attention and DON’T YOU DARE think about damaging property”-assed hook-assed treathounds
The “Russian are orcs” and “no Nazis in Ukraine” type. Even calls himself a Nazi in his name.
Oh you were talking about that one. Even more disgusting frankly
And the re-opening of mechanized trench warfare in Eastern Europe
Those are great and work well if you want to convince people who are leaning Biden, but if you want to convince Trump leaners, you might tweak the wordings a little. No need to mention the dangerous parts of anti-women’s rights stuff (ie. wanting to forbid abortion, thereby making women’s deaths much more likely), because that won’t convince them. The language they understand of “climate” is not “good measures”, but “I’m getting taxed and now I can’t pay my bills”. You need to speak in terms of fear, because that is what they are: afraid. Speak of fear, that the person who makes their bills higher, is actually Trump. Don’t do so by directly starting with how Trump is bad. Instead, say, interesting you vote for him, question, question more, push, but not too far… and then once you got them hooked, question them by fears. Then don’t tell them what the answer is (unless if they ask or seem to want one), but let them think. Let them figure it out. This will have a better effect.
“Biden respects the Constitution, because he let Hunter be trialed. Biden criticised the new rule. This whereas Trump called the Constitutional courts, who were IN HIS favour, into question. With the new rule, Biden could assassinate Trump. Trump could assassinate YOU. And he’d get away with it. Under Trump’s judges, the President gets power to affect YOUR life. Do you think any president should be able to infringe on your personal life?”
And to (very religious) Christians and (xenophobes); “As Christians, it is our Duty to be Good Neighbours. Then the Word will spread better. But can we be good neighbours, if we deny people being neighbours in the first place? If we drive out native people from their homeland? If you are a Servant of God, should you then not choose to let Palestinians have their own state, without being colonised by foreigners? Only then will the Palestinian refugees stop protesting with violence, and go back to their homelands. This is not a matter of what I think, but of what a Good Christian should see: injustice done upon us, injustice done upon them, injustice upon us all. Let us thus gather together.”
Granted, I’m not familiar with all what happens in the USA, but perhaps those also help.
You’re right. This won’t convince a Trump voter to vote for Biden. They dismiss anything from “liberal news” which is every outlet besides the far-right. It’s been my experience that talking to a Trump supporter is kicking water uphill.
I wrote that to do what Biden’s campaign is failing to do, speak to all of his accomplishments next to Trump’s “accomplishments,” in hopes of informing the discouraged, disengaged, and disenfranchised.
What news source did your Trump people reject when you tried to show it to them?
Any. For example, my sister is locked in. She calls everything that doesn’t come from Fox, OAN, or Truth “corrupt liberal media.”
“People”
Care to share what you meant by this?
Cannot fathom caring about a blatant genocide so they have labelled everyone who does a bot
Haven’t you read their messaging? They are just perfectly innocent Democrat supporters who are super concerned about Biden’s chances in the election. Also they talk about Cornel West sometimes. For some reason they are not concerned about his chances in the election; they just really like what he has to say, and they’re going to vote for him. Flawless.
They say your time is much better spent guaranteeing people who already will vote blue show up to polls than trying to change the opinion of people who will vote red.
So that looks like asking people “do you have a plan to vote?” And perhaps in a less nosy phrasing: “When will you vote?” “How will you get there?”
People verbalizing a plan makes them more likely to follow through.
There are many places you can sign up to go canvassing, which is great. I would suggest in addition to and maybe before that, make a list of everyone you know and would feel comfortable talking to, and talk to them about voting. You will get much more mileage from existing relationships. (It’s like how sales differentiates a warm lead and a cold lead)
Once you’ve exhausted that list then every little bit still helps. I do think high density events like farmers markets, community gatherings, concerts, games, etc have better rate of contact than door to door.
I realize I just essentially said to tell people to vote while you were asking for something more. I wanted to share that because some people think that posting “vote” is the same as having a conversation about voting. Posting is not nearly as effective.
Another thing that might help is directly asking elected officials to intervene. Staffers for politicians keep a tally of calls and letters they receive for/against a given issue. So while your words may not move an elected, you and some friends can get them to act on an issue. If you have a group you can also request a meeting to discuss your issue which is even more effective. Politicians take notice of organized groups of constituents since that’s a block of votes for/against them and possible a group knocking doors for/against them.
The trouble is I don’t know what the ask is. There should be a specific action you’re demanding: “introduce this bill” “cosponsor this bill” “vote for/against this bill”. And it has to be something they’re able to do. I don’t know what that thing would be.
Pack the supreme court (but there’s not time for that or majority in the house).
Long term I think building true power means growing communities, joining unions and cooperatives. Most of us aren’t rich or powerful enough to be heard, which is why organizing is so important. None of this is fair or easy to do.
Become one of Biden’s close personal advisors and remind him of his obligation to protect the constitution from insurrectionists using official acts? Sorry I’m hella salty today.
Same here man, but it makes me think. Does Monica Lewinsky count as an official act?
Not exactly a class act 😉
I mean, if she’s good at her job…
He can’t. His only power over SCOTUS is nominating Justices in the event of a vacancy.
Congress can, but Republicans control the House.
They won’t control the House after a few official acts.
That only applies to criminal prosecution. You really think Biden is going to off a dozen or so House members?
"…Enemies foreign and domestic."
No, because he’s a coward and an appeaser.
Btw, your cope that it has to be the President specifically doing the acts is disagreed with by Sonya Sotomayor in her dissent where she states outright that this decision makes political assassination legal.
But you’d know the implications better than a SC Justice who works with the fascist members of the Court, right?
So Biden can officially assassinate the entire Republican side and the supreme Court and because he was president when he ordered it, it is legal?
That’s the dissent’s warning.
I guess the surviving members of the Court can reopen the question!
Yes, exactly. “They were insurrectionists bent on overthrowing our government, and it was a tough, but necessary, decision to protect the nation, which is my duty as President.”
That claim isn’t even entirely untrue.
But Biden himself came out and spoke about the ruling (paraphrasing) “we need presidents to use their power with caution and respect the (self imposed) limitations of it. I’ll continue to do just that. The next guy might not do so and that’s concerning.”
Just a big ol’ shrug from Biden… “I won’t do it, but he sure as hell will.”
Thanks Mr.Virtue… where is all that virtue when it comes to Palestinians?
No. It’s new, and I haven’t seen the full transcript. I’m repeating what I’ve read in the news. Do you have a link so I can learn more?
I understand how the President could theoretically order an assassination then pardon. That was a good point I read in another thread.
Transcripts are posted after rulings.
Or you could just read one of the many, many, many articles quoting her dissent.
Or watch a video quoting her.
You’re absolutely correct. This is the part that has been left out of every news article I’ve read, and is undoubtedly the most concerning:
And some Presidential conduct-for example, speaking to and on behalf of the American people, see Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 701 (2018) - certainly can qualify as official even when not obviously connected to a particular constitutional or statutory provision. For those reasons, the immunity we have recognized extends to the “outer perimeter” of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.”
So it’s not just acts committed by the President, but also ordered by the President.
It’s also vague enough that charges can get bounced around lower courts indefinitely.
Thank you again for the link. I didn’t see it when I first searched.
You could at least make it easy and post a link to the pdf
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a man can but dream…
He can’t. His only power over SCOTUS is nominating Justices in the event of a vacancy.
This is wrong. He can pack the courts RIGHT NOW. The Democratic party still holds the Senate. There is no requirement for there to only be nine justices.
Edit: This does require the house changing the number of justices. So the above is incorrect.
He cannot. The Republicans have House majority.
The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices; the number is set instead by Congress. There have been as few as six, but since 1869 there have been nine Justices, including one Chief Justice.
Oh, you are right about that.
With every House seat up for election, as well as 33 Senate seats, Democrats need to vote hard this fall for congressional majority if we want to put SCOTUS in check.
If Biden did that the House might impeach him. I mean, the surviving members of the House probably wouldn’t, but they theoretically could.
Don’t have Biden run for reelection. Pick any other half decent human and they should win.
Too late for that
The American way. See a problem, wait until it’s too late to fix said problem, point fingers at a scapegoat for why the problem wasn’t solved earlier, and repeat.
Convention hasn’t happened yet. It literally isn’t too late for that.
The problem is that the act of swapping candidates will seem to be so entirely clueless that whoever steps up to the plate is bound to lose.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. No one will spoil their chances for 2028 by being a late entry now. The democratic party is hunkering down for 4 more years of Trump is suspect.
They are not bound to lose.
That is a statement that is being pushed, along with the whole Biden “Over prepared” thing as a talking point to push why we have to stick with a dementia-addled genocidal asshole.
It’s simply not a true statement. You’re stating an opinion as fact, and it’s misleading as shit.
The second someone else gets picked is the second that they (Whoever they are) have name recognition and people will consider that person.
I hope you’re right. I want you to be right. And I agree at this point the Democratic Party ought to try - damn, they’re losing anyway so they might as well try.
My worry is that an alternative candidate that is worth their salt AND want to run against Trump can’t be found. I hope I’m wrong.
The only clean way to do it is for Biden to step down put Kamala in by default and let anyone who wants to run in 2028 fight for the new VP spot. Most voters thought this was the plan anyways in 2020. That said Biden’s not going to step down so they aren’t doing shit.
The convention hasn’t even happened yet? 🤔
RIP and good riddance then
I suppose Biden could have him officially assassinated. That’s legal now.
Trump even shown the way, assassinating general Soleimani.
Telling Biden to stop the genocide.
single-handedly. Send out that 81 year old man with a pistol to take on the Israeli defence force.
🙄
This, but unironically.
Or just stop giving them billions. That’s the threat Bush and Reagan used.
But I like your idea more.
pop quiz: what happens when Israel is defenseless?
answer: the Arab neighbours who have been Borat-like in their anti-Semitism move in and do exactly what they say they will do for decades.
pop quiz: is there another way without wiping out another people?
answer: yes. change Israel’s government.
Israel can figure out how to pay for its own defenses
I assume they’d go to Russia for defense $ since that’s where most are from.
Please educate yourself.
I do all my best learnin’ from da yutoobs.
That’s great, keep learning.
FROM DA YOOTOOBS
Why don’t presidents fight the wars?
Don’t have a genocidal sundowning segregationist nominated without a rank-and-file voting process with multiple candidates. Or accept that you are not really in charge of any of this when it comes to The Democratic Party and therefore you should place your political focus on ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.
This is the only correct answer. The settler empire cannot and will never do right, neither by the subjects-of-empire they still subject to fascism, to tenement housing because anglo realty companies bought up everything else to stranglehold rent prices, to carceral slavery in moldering prisons with food that’d give you COVID before it nourished you, to murder in our beds at the hands of SWAT teams; nor by the rest of the world that they routinely violate, pillage, and commit genocide upon. Death to the empire, worse to those who bear its water.
“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” – John Brown, December 2, 1859
ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.
How would one go about it? Would be useful if it’s in a general context, as I’m not a North American.
As has consistently been the case for people in our position, our power comes from our ability to organize and take collective action and to develop the question you asked even further and for the conditions in our own countries. This in contrast to what our rulers tell us gives us power (in reality, they give us instructions on how to maintain their power), which is usually some kind of institutional cooption, like joining an NGO or nagging people to vote for their oppressors or doing some slight participation in a milquetoast political party.
Increasing our organization and choosing good actions to take is not an easy process, though it is often surprisingly simple to describe. To be more organized we have to meet with one another, we must gain the skills to convince others to join up with us, to compile the information needed to contact interested parties, to strategically work in coalition with other organizations, to train each other regularly in the core tasks or running any organization. To choose the right actions to take, we must read political theory and history, teach this to each other, and understand how it applies (or does not) to our current situations. The political theory that is the most useful is that which is usually not taught, not even to criticize, but is glossed over or told stories about - it’s the political theory of the left and a fearless critical reading of history.
Because our institutions educationally neglect us so severely, particularly when it comes to the tools for our own liberation, it can take a while before you might feel like you are confident or ready to go. That is okay and normal. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time to read or to simply try things out a little first.
So I would recommend two things.
The first is to begin reading the political theory of the left and history. There may already be great authors and movements where you live, or there may have been some in the past. They can help you get an idea for who our enemy is (the ruling class) and what different movements have attempted (successfully and not) in the past. Try just one book at first. I often recommend that people start with Blackshirts & Reds by Michael Parenti, as it is a good primer in what we all need to unlearn, or at least take a skeptical lens to, when it comes to the mass media telling of history and politics vs. what actually happened. The value of reading is that it will help you and everyone you talk to choose good actions to take collectively. Those who do not understand the nature of the system we must fight will choose the wrong actions and may even hurt our interests. So education is not just a good thing in itself, it is a tool of political organization.
The second is to get involved with an organization that does mass left politics. There are certain kinds of organizations I would recommend avoiding and I’ll explain more if you ask about it. But most organizations that take a proper ground-up approach and are not an NGO will probably be a useful experience for you and your ability to politically organize. It will likely be useful even if you eventually leave that group for another!
Thank you.
read political theory and history
Which books other than the one that you mentioned(thanks for that), would you recommend? Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
I’ve been recommended State & rev and I have read it, but it seems that eventhough I get the idea, I don’t have the foundation and context(didn’t understand who all the people mentioned in it are) to fully understand it. Maybe I need to reread it.Are there any books that you’d recommend about organising and the associated skills/strategy needed for it?
Could I ask a related question:
In my place I’m seeing communal polarisation increasing. Or it is becoming more evident. How would one oppose that in a populace where religion and caste hold good sway, without the opposition giving it more power accidently?
I’ve seen leftist n leftish organisations being affected by this.Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
Michael Parenti, “Blackshirts and Reds”. J. Sakai, “Settlers”. Too Black and Rasul A. Mowatt, “Laundering Black Rage”.
Thank you
Thank you.
Thank you for being interested and wanting to learn more! We can only liberate ourselves with more people like yourself.
Which books other than the one that you mentioned(thanks for that), would you recommend? Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
There are too many options, is the main challenge. I would usually want to suggest something that builds on your interests or addresses some topic you’re really interested in, in particular.
I think one good angle to begin with is media criticism. It builds a very useful ongoing skill and also teaches many important facts and lessons about who controls us and how. It’s simultaneously fascinating, upsetting, horrific, and banal. Blackshirts & Reds touches on it. Parenti also wrote Inventing Reality, which in my opinion is a book that is similar to but slightly better than Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky (which I also recommend). There is also FAIR.org, a website which focuses almost exclusively on media criticism, and the podcast Citations Needed that has a number of episodes dedicated to media criticism and current events.
There are two modern texts by the same author that I think are also very useful, though they are also (recent) historical critiques. I would recommend them if you are interested in some valuable but possibly upsetting historical explorations of what does not work, but is close to working. The books are The Jakarta Method and If We Burn by Vincent Bevins. The first will give a strong sense for just how far our oppressors will go and what we must think about if we want to win. The second is about challenges to organize, mostly but not always in rich Western countries.
Critiquing geopolitics can also be useful. There are too many books that come to mind on this topic. A perennial favorite is Michael Hudson’s Super imperialism, which gives a nice argument for the coercive power of the US dollar and global debt structures. This is a useful topic to get a handle on because it’s the very first and best tool chosen to crush any fights for the common person. Not even radical fights. Just simple things like winning an election and then nationalizing an industry so that you can feed your people rather than let foreign companies of your former colonizers extract and own all your stuff. Any fight to improve conditions in a country that has been targeted for extraction will have to fight these same groups and their complex of actors, including financial instruments, NGOs, propaganda blitzes, etc.
If you prefer to build from foundations there is really no substitute for reading seminal theories, though they won’t be modern. Unfortunately, we are fighting the same fundamental system that people were fighting 150 years ago, though we are now the beneficiaries of seeing those experiments and learning from them. As foundational works I would recommend reading Marx and reading Emma Goldman, which will help lay foundations for understanding critiques of capitalism from both a Marxist and anarchist perspective. Marx’s main work, Capital, is very difficult to read due to the way in which he methodologically laid out concepts, so I usually recommend that people read Heinrich’s summary and then Michael Roberts’ commentaries. Those two disagree with each other about a few things so you’ll get a nice balance. For Goldman I recommend reading Anarchism and Other Essays. Once you have a foundation in Marxism I recommend reading Lenin, as his theoretical and organizational developments were key to the very first sustained anti-capitalist revolution on the planet. In addition, his theories on imperialism are incredibly relevant even today, as imperialism remains the primary tool of our oppressors.
I’ve been recommended State & rev and I have read it, but it seems that eventhough I get the idea, I don’t have the foundation and context(didn’t understand who all the people mentioned in it are) to fully understand it. Maybe I need to reread it.
That book will be very hard to understand without having some contextual knowledge of Marxism and of some of the arguments that lefties were having at the time. It’s a theoretical work by Lenin where he lays out his conception of how socialists should treat the state (before, during, and after a hypothetical revolution) as well as how to specifically position a national anti-capitalist movement against cooption into reformism via liberal democratic institutions, particularly in the context of Tsarist Russia (while commenting on Germany as well, where most people that weren’t like-minded with Lenin thought revolution would first occur). It’s a very interesting book with many great quotes and theses but I would not start with it if the references aren’t making a lot of sense.
Are there any books that you’d recommend about organising and the associated skills/strategy needed for it?
For the skills I personally don’t think there are any particularly good books about it that are both modern and in English (there may be non-English books that are good but I haven’t read!). The core skills are best acquired through practice and in finding opportunities to learn from experienced organizers. They will have books that they like, but imo it’s a good idea to be skeptical of them. This is because most books on organizing are by people who are not particularly successful or who have succeeded in contexts that are actually fairly different from our own most of the time. For example, there are many skills in union organizing that are valuable for left organizing in general (many of them came from lefties in the first place). Those are great to learn. But if you go to the books about union organizing they tend to be pretty crap, in my experience, as they teach a formulaic approach and the authors are often just… not actually very good at it. Or they teach an approach that works great for organizing a factory when anti-capitalist sentiment is already high and it’s the 1920s. When you go to apply their approaches to lefty organizing you’ll end up in jail or something.
Anyways I recommend learning this from an organization. Find one that takes the skills of organizing seriously and has strategy and planning meetings rather than debate clubs. They will be the ones to learn in.
Which books…would you recommend?
@Dessalines@lemmy.ml put together a good reading list that includes the reading order.
Thank you.
Is the list ordered by importance or is it the recommended reading order?Mostly in the recommended reading order, but he listed some notes on their importance or when they can be skipped, etc. with many of the sources, particularly at the start of the list.
This should take you up through where you were at State and Revolution and where to go next. I have to say that the recommendation others have given for Black Shirts and Reds is also a very good place to start for the reasons they gave.
Almost all of these can be found on the internet archive, Anna’s Archive, or you can ask around on lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml for free digital copies. While some people prefer physical books, there shouldn’t be any need to pay for these unless you want to.
In my place I’m seeing communal polarisation increasing. Or it is becoming more evident. How would one oppose that in a populace where religion and caste hold good sway, without the opposition giving it more power accidently?
That is a very difficult question to answer! You may already know better than I do, being embedded in your local context. But I can suggest some things to consider.
The first is that religion is not a simple good or bad thing when it comes to organizing. It is another consciousness that can compete with or work with a liberation project. It will depend on its structure, how it exerts powers and who it antagonizes vs. helps. There are two big negative forms of political religiosity that are dangerous to liberation. The first is the obvious reactionary conflation of religion with tradition and factionalization, where it is used as a way to create a societal rift and oppression on the basis of religion. This is largely a distraction from the material basis of oppression, but is it very effective and harmful. The second is when religion is used to “check out” of struggle. For example, I know a local religious leader that tells people that it’s okay that so many children are killed by Israelis in Palestine because they are martyred in heaven, the only thing that really matters. While this soothes some of the pain, it can also lead to a form of material apathy and turning away from action. With that said, there are also things like liberation theology and working with religious groups towards liberatory ends. It’s something that has to be navigated on a case-by-case basis. It is not wrong to, for example, adopt the position that X group is copptonf Y religion and that this should be rejected, even if you do not personally subscribe to religion Y in the first place. You will be more powerful if you (as in, any organization you may be in) find a group that focuses on religion Y from an angle that is compatible with yours and for you to keep each other safe and strong.
Regarding caste, does this mean you are in South Asia or otherwise interacting with th concept of caste as derived from it? This is also a very challenging thing to consider and there are very good points to be made for addressing caste first vs. class first and how they overlap and are different. If you are in India, I would focus on how you might oppose Hindutva from an angle that is caste-critical and whether there are people in your area that are interested in opposing both. People who have been assigned a lower caste will be more likely to see the injustice and be able to act in their own favor and build momentum, though you can also find and make good use of “caste traitors”.
Anyways your question is really about communal polarization. This is not something you can simply prevent as its own quantity. What you can do is build towards the better factions within that community and push your own projects. Our enemies create this polarization, they create and maintain fascists and the false consciousnesses that divide us against ourselves. We can’t create unity that centers those false consciousness, is what I’ll suggest. Class consciousness is at least a correct consciousness that opposes this division and if you include the additional valid liberation struggles you’ll be able to build from firm ground.
I should say that this is not the kind of thing anyone can do alone. All of this would only be realistic to discuss as part of an organization to which you would be contributing your efforts and knowledge. So my real advice is to see if you can identify an anti-capitalist group in your community that seems at least 70% good and see if you can join it. And please do so as safely and securely as possible (in-person communication is best, do not use Whatsapp or Facebook etc).
I’ve seen leftist n leftish organisations being affected by this.
Lefty orgs are basically always in some form of drama or crisis, so this isn’t necessarily an odd thing, haha. I can’t give a useful opinion without knowing more about how they’ve been affected, though.
To add to the extensive information you’ve already been given, I would highly recommend the Anarchist FAQ, which is all good, but specifically section J breaks down the “what can we do about it” part.
The anarchist Library in general is a fantastic resource, another good place to start might be David Graeber’s Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! or Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid.
Happy exploring!
Volunteer to help get good local politicians elected.
Help a local charity.
The impact will be indirect, but inpactful.
Long shot here: Donate to charities which help people in need in predominantly Trump held districts.
Less of a long shot: Volunteer for organizations like Vote Forward to try to reach folks. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, and appealing to people can’t hurt.
I’m very curious how giving money to Trump supporters would hurt Trump? Some people are giving their last dollar to Trump and depend in charity at this point. Wouldn’t throwing money at local charities just further enable them?
It’s good to see that the propaganda accounts have learned the Fox News trick of having one person innocently ask a question so a bunch of other people can rush in and provide the answer (which is turning out to be, big shocker, that Biden is bad and we shouldn’t vote for him.) As Fox discovered, it seems a lot more organic that way instead of just having someone stand in front of the camera and say over and over “DON’T VOTE FOR BIDEN.”
I am still waiting for them to learn to make accounts that are supporting Biden but doing a terrible job of it – sort of a Lemmy version of Alan Colmes – like “I’m glad the stock market and GDP are going up so much under Biden, as a rich person I think he’s doing great with the economy and also he’s sticking it to the Palestinians which I obviously support.”
I’ve seen a little sporadic trickle of accounts with very bad semiconservative opinions and then also supporting certain Democrats, but they seem pretty chaotic and probably like authentic homegrown trolls. I think the real fake-Biden-supporting propaganda potential has yet to be unlocked. I do support this new development in innocent questions, though; it seems like it’s got some potential.
Mozz Mozz Mozz… C’mon man! I’m just getting the discussion going. I’ve never told you “don’t vote for Biden”. Here buddy…
Register to vote and/or check your registration status:
You know what? I actually think the answers are almost all pretty solidly productive stuff. Like taking at face value the question and saying “hey here’s how to help the Democrats win since you asked.”
That was not what I expected. I am – for real – pretty surprised. I think I have well founded reasons for being suspicious of why you would have posted the actual “just asking questions” original post, but the answers (even the discussion from people being real critical of Biden) is fine. Has the Lemmy consensus, even on lemmy.ml, shifted that far away from “let’s not vote for Biden what’s the worst that could happen”?
It must be simultaneously comforting and deeply disturbing to believe that everyone who disagrees with you is an actor.
I didn’t say everyone; I certainly don’t think that. When you’re backing Cornel West and saying you’re super concerned that the Democrats might lose the election and then making up false things about the Democrats and uninterested when you get called out on the false things and keep repeating them, though, I don’t think it takes some kind of crazy X-Files type of leap of logic to say hey everybody I think this guy’s not 100% on the level.
This post. Nice try, glowie.
But for real, just be nice to people. When you talk to them about politics and tell them to vote.
The vast majority of Americans both already know how they feel about Trump and Biden and live in a solidly red or blue state. If you do want to focus on Biden, volunteer with phone banking or canvassing so that your efforts are directed to where they’ll actually matter and be organized in line with their messaging. Personally, I’d say you’re better off focusing on local races where you have more of an opportunity to come at it from a different angle and cut through people’s fortified positions. And as another user said, focus on mobilization, it’s easier to get someone who already agrees with you to register and make a plan than to convince someone to change their whole worldview.
There are also strategies outside of electoralism, such as protests and counter-protests. You can join an organization and form tactics and strategies to subvert the right’s actions, and engage with direct action to build trust and community that could be important in the future. Form strategies while being realistic about your goals and capabilities and coordinate with others.
Who’s really going to be swayed by a phone bank? My democratic rep keeps robocalling me and sending text messages and I honestly find it more annoying than anything. This does not work in 2024.
If someone canvassing (or a potential solicitor) knocks on my door I’m either not going to answer it or ask them to leave because I’m busy and don’t want my time taken up.
These are totally ineffective strategies IMO.
There are a few types of people that get targeted based on a voter profile, if my tiny amount of phone banking experience matches. There are the people who are probably going to vote for your party, but need a reminder because they are disengaged. Then there are swing voters that actually are on the fence and use a little information about your candidate. Like, most people don’t know much about Biden’s infrastructure package, so list off some projects nearby.
Fair, and people in swing states get inundated with ads as it is. Mostly I’d say it’s more useful for mobilization than persuasion, like if you get a text reminding you when voting day is maybe someone makes it when they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Ideally, volunteers could mean quality over quantity, less automated spam asking for money and instead actual humans responding to concerns and answering questions. Even more ideally, that could be paired with voters’ concerns being elevated and the party actually responding to them. The goal is to improve the quality of the campaign’s voter outreach, in whatever form that outreach takes.
I’m not a fan of Biden myself but I still think it’s worth discussing general electoral strategies.
Call your democratic politicians (if you have any) Governor/Senators/House Rep and advocate for pressure for Biden to step down gracefully from the ticket… then prepare to vote for Biden in November because that’s a hell of a longshot.
If you’re talking to people on the fence about voting or not focus more on Biden’s policy achievements instead of Trump being a boogie man. Anyone liberal who is considering sitting out this election has already internally decided that Trump is an acceptable outcome for trying to change the two party system or to avoid dirtying their hands voting for Biden to continue genocide - pushing against people’s fervently held beliefs is a waste of energy… the media really hasn’t put much attention on things that Biden has accomplished so talking those things up won’t make people defensive - you never want to directly challenge someone’s fervently held beliefs because it is extremely difficult to shift those.
or to avoid dirtying their hands voting for Biden to continue genocide
So genocide isn’t a deal-breaker for you. Tells me a lot.
Genocide or more genocide? Difficult choice…
All I’m saying is capital-H History will know who collaborated by whose names are on the ballots. And goddess willing, if I get to survive this? I will sell y’all asses out to the historians if I’m asked.
“Yessir, those anglos were perfectly fine with letting their personally-armed and trained proxy force massacre as many brown foreigners as possible if it meant they got to keep their comfort”; I’m already practicing my Yeonmi Park routine. And I won’t even have to lie; imagine that.
It’s not a choice at all. Voting makes you complicit.
I’m reading this and having flashbacks to me campaigning for Hillary in 2016 and agreeing with people on doorsteps: yeah she’s not great but she’s much better than the alternative.
I remember canvassing for Obama and really being into it
turning off voters is the biggest reason why we don’t vote imo in this environment and there’s nothing you can do about shitty choices that the democrats will give us; but there’s things you can do to overcome the other institutional part of it; aka gerrymandering:
setup free voting ride shares with free filling snacks in gerrymandered states that will pick each person up from home; drop them off at their polling station; pick them up from there; and then drop them off at home w/o having to wait for everyone to finish voting. the lines are VERY long and take hours in heavily gerrymandered places like houston texas and people hate voting already; so making them wait or skip dinner to vote is a non-starter.
setup free voting phone number and/or website that will help register you to vote (not just tell you what you need to do) on your behalf and include the option to mail you a pre-filled envelope and stamp if paper registration is required. advertise it HEAVILY on all forms of media everywhere and make it clear it’s not from the government.
then, assign a case worker to every client to ensure that the registration was completed and followup on the problems that gerrymandered places usually create to suppress votes. also get lawyers or people familiar with election laws to file inquiries on each voter’s behalf each time a gerrymandered place manages to find a reason to disqualify a voter or an employer refuses to let them off to vote and use that case worker to manage it.
expect it to fail the first few times because people hate talking about politics so they won’t listen for the first few cycles.
