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UNLIMITED 2020 THREAD

Started by Doktor Howl, March 01, 2019, 08:53:02 PM

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tyrannosaurus vex

If the long game was the way it works, we wouldn't be scrambling for mediocre damage control after 40 years of incremental change in the wrong direction and 4 years of precipitous falling into a fascist abyss. Why does the GOP get to go full tilt Nazi but the DNC has to settle for this baby step bullshit? Either it's because the DNC doesn't actually want all that much progress anyway, or it's because the USA in general just isn't the sort of place where progress happens. In neither case does "incremental change" feel very likely. I am tired of hearing about this "slow march of progress" and "long arc or history" horseshit when a Republican like Eisenhower would be jeered off the Democrats' stage these days for being more radical than Bernie Sanders. It's all hogwash. History has no direction, and the notion that progress must be slow is a myth that only serves to reinforce the status quo.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Cramulus

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 04:31:45 PM
the DNC doesn't actually want all that much progress anyway

yeah I cynically think Veep is the most accurate tv-depiction of national politics.

Nobody* has an ideology, they only have reelection campaign platforms.

If history trends towards justice, it's only because justice is useful on the campaign trail.




Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 04:31:45 PM
If the long game was the way it works, we wouldn't be scrambling for mediocre damage control after 40 years of incremental change in the wrong direction and 4 years of precipitous falling into a fascist abyss. Why does the GOP get to go full tilt Nazi but the DNC has to settle for this baby step bullshit? Either it's because the DNC doesn't actually want all that much progress anyway, or it's because the USA in general just isn't the sort of place where progress happens. In neither case does "incremental change" feel very likely. I am tired of hearing about this "slow march of progress" and "long arc or history" horseshit when a Republican like Eisenhower would be jeered off the Democrats' stage these days for being more radical than Bernie Sanders. It's all hogwash. History has no direction, and the notion that progress must be slow is a myth that only serves to reinforce the status quo.

So now you can choose between "things not getting much better" or "things continuing to roll downhill on fire."

Doesn't matter what you're tired of hearing, doesn't matter that you'd prefer candidate that would prefer more rapid change.  There are loads of things that I want, things that make sense, that I'm not going to get.

It's like that.  And that's the way it is.
Molon Lube

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 07, 2020, 05:21:34 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 04:31:45 PM
If the long game was the way it works, we wouldn't be scrambling for mediocre damage control after 40 years of incremental change in the wrong direction and 4 years of precipitous falling into a fascist abyss. Why does the GOP get to go full tilt Nazi but the DNC has to settle for this baby step bullshit? Either it's because the DNC doesn't actually want all that much progress anyway, or it's because the USA in general just isn't the sort of place where progress happens. In neither case does "incremental change" feel very likely. I am tired of hearing about this "slow march of progress" and "long arc or history" horseshit when a Republican like Eisenhower would be jeered off the Democrats' stage these days for being more radical than Bernie Sanders. It's all hogwash. History has no direction, and the notion that progress must be slow is a myth that only serves to reinforce the status quo.

So now you can choose between "things not getting much better" or "things continuing to roll downhill on fire."

Doesn't matter what you're tired of hearing, doesn't matter that you'd prefer candidate that would prefer more rapid change.  There are loads of things that I want, things that make sense, that I'm not going to get.

It's like that.  And that's the way it is.

It's like that when everyone has agreed among themselves that the way we do things now is the way things must be done because it's the way we have always done them. And "things not getting much better" isn't on the ballot, you're talking about the "things stop getting worse at their present breakneck speed and go back to getting worse at a more manageable pace" option. People keep telling me that we have to do progress slowly so the Luddites and rednecks can sort of keep up, but weirdly the Other Guys don't hear that argument about their concentration camps and racist cops and they are quite free to hop into the deep end as quickly as they please, and we are asked to just bide our time and accommodate them. Because god forbid things get worse before they get better, that's a bridge too far. No, it's preferable that things just get worse, period, albeit more slowly.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 06:14:00 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 07, 2020, 05:21:34 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 04:31:45 PM
If the long game was the way it works, we wouldn't be scrambling for mediocre damage control after 40 years of incremental change in the wrong direction and 4 years of precipitous falling into a fascist abyss. Why does the GOP get to go full tilt Nazi but the DNC has to settle for this baby step bullshit? Either it's because the DNC doesn't actually want all that much progress anyway, or it's because the USA in general just isn't the sort of place where progress happens. In neither case does "incremental change" feel very likely. I am tired of hearing about this "slow march of progress" and "long arc or history" horseshit when a Republican like Eisenhower would be jeered off the Democrats' stage these days for being more radical than Bernie Sanders. It's all hogwash. History has no direction, and the notion that progress must be slow is a myth that only serves to reinforce the status quo.

So now you can choose between "things not getting much better" or "things continuing to roll downhill on fire."

Doesn't matter what you're tired of hearing, doesn't matter that you'd prefer candidate that would prefer more rapid change.  There are loads of things that I want, things that make sense, that I'm not going to get.

It's like that.  And that's the way it is.

It's like that when everyone has agreed among themselves that the way we do things now is the way things must be done because it's the way we have always done them. And "things not getting much better" isn't on the ballot, you're talking about the "things stop getting worse at their present breakneck speed and go back to getting worse at a more manageable pace" option. People keep telling met that we have to do progress slowly so the Luddites and rednecks can sort of keep up, but weirdly the Other Guys don't hear that argument about their concentration camps and racist cops and they are quite free to hop into the deep end as quickly as they please, and we are asked to just bide our time and accommodate them. Because god forbid things get worse before they get better, that's a bridge too far. No, it's preferable that things just get worse, period, albeit more slowly.

I didn't agree to this shit.  I know you didn't agree to this shit.  But looking at the primary results, loads of people DID agree to this shit and so this is the shit we have.  Given that, we can either work with what we have, or we can scream accellerationist shit while we let the big orange smear ensure that this is the last opportunity we have to have even THAT much choice.

Think of it as being given the choice between a fat lip and a body cast, but you resent the choice so the body cast it is.
Molon Lube

altered

I want to remind you, vex, that I stand a very real chance of actual, factual death in the next two weeks. You don't get to socially distance when you're on the streets.

Apparently there's a huge wave of cold weather about to hit the East Coast, which is literally the only place I have a hair of a smidgen of a chance of survival. And I do not have winter clothing.

Oh, and I need to remind you that there is no organization in the continental US that isn't overwhelmed by this to the point of turning away people who are already there, so there is no support to turn to for an outsider for sure.

If I survive this, and the shitstain in chief remains large and in charge for four more years, I might very well be rounded up as a political dissident, dangerous mental case, and sexual deviant.

This is in some sense a war. "Our side" is fighting defense on all fronts. You want to fight offense on the moonshot front, and redirect all momentum from every other offensive front.

While we are being beaten into oblivion from ALL sides.

I might die already. How much worse will it get if you have your way and fail? And you need to understand that you are (like me and a good many others here) a fringe radical, and you cannot win except by mass murder, so failure is damn near guaranteed.

We need people working on rapid change, yes, absolutely. We also need to be working on everything the fuck else, because otherwise things get so bad that no one can save us, even if you find the magic solution to rapid change. I am begging you to step back from this fucking abyss.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

tyrannosaurus vex

#486
Quote from: altered on May 07, 2020, 07:39:15 PM
I want to remind you, vex, that I stand a very real chance of actual, factual death in the next two weeks. You don't get to socially distance when you're on the streets.

Apparently there's a huge wave of cold weather about to hit the East Coast, which is literally the only place I have a hair of a smidgen of a chance of survival. And I do not have winter clothing.

Oh, and I need to remind you that there is no organization in the continental US that isn't overwhelmed by this to the point of turning away people who are already there, so there is no support to turn to for an outsider for sure.

If I survive this, and the shitstain in chief remains large and in charge for four more years, I might very well be rounded up as a political dissident, dangerous mental case, and sexual deviant.

That sucks and I wish it wasn't that way, and I very sincerely don't want to do anything that makes your terrible situation worse than it already is.

Quote
This is in some sense a war. "Our side" is fighting defense on all fronts. You want to fight offense on the moonshot front, and redirect all momentum from every other offensive front.

While we are being beaten into oblivion from ALL sides.

But that isn't what I want to do. What I plan to do, and what I hope every sane person plans to do, is vote for the authorized representative of the downtrodden, in this case Biden. More importantly I want everyone to participate in their local elections, which have a more direct and less filtered effect on the situations of people in their immediate region than any federal officer has. But at the same time I believe it's important that people remain aware of the abject inadequacy of the choices we are given and engage in loud and disruptive protests of the system that gives them to us.

Quote
I might die already. How much worse will it get if you have your way and fail? And you need to understand that you are (like me and a good many others here) a fringe radical, and you cannot win except by mass murder, so failure is damn near guaranteed.

We need people working on rapid change, yes, absolutely. We also need to be working on everything the fuck else, because otherwise things get so bad that no one can save us, even if you find the magic solution to rapid change. I am begging you to step back from this fucking abyss.

Ultimately I want people to realize that there is no electoral solution to our problems. It isn't that I am mad because my guy didn't get nominated, and it isn't that I want people to sit on their asses in some kind of hopeless and meaningless "protest" of a system that's just tickled pink to have them sit on their asses. What I want is for people to stop waiting around for the system to present them with the right option on a ballot (as if that's ever going to happen) and start engaging in direct action to alleviate the suffering around them and frustrate the machinery that drives that suffering. I don't want people to give up on hope, I want them to understand their hope is misplaced if it is in the existing political system at all.

ETA: It's worth reiterating here that angry and dissatisfied leftists who weren't happy with the DNC in 2016 were not a significant contributing factor in Donald Trump's win that year. And this isn't directed at anyone here specifically, but telling people to stop demanding a truly equitable system and democratic representation is a curious way to stave off fascism.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

altered

I'm saying we can do both. And forgive me if I have misjudged your intent here, really. BUT: if you are agreeing that we can do both, you are literally the only one talking the way you are who thinks that way. Without exaggeration, every single solitary leftist off of PD I'm seeing is like "BERNIE WAS OUR COMPROMISE CANDIDATE," or "BIDEN IS LITERALLY JUST TRUMP," or other "fuck everyone who needs this I want you to suffer mightily for a potential better future" type of slogans and chants.

So forgive me for believing that the actual unicorn was yet another jackass with a seashell glued to its head.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

tyrannosaurus vex

#488
Quote from: altered on May 07, 2020, 08:45:07 PM
I'm saying we can do both. And forgive me if I have misjudged your intent here, really. BUT: if you are agreeing that we can do both, you are literally the only one talking the way you are who thinks that way. Without exaggeration, every single solitary leftist off of PD I'm seeing is like "BERNIE WAS OUR COMPROMISE CANDIDATE," or "BIDEN IS LITERALLY JUST TRUMP," or other "fuck everyone who needs this I want you to suffer mightily for a potential better future" type of slogans and chants.

So forgive me for believing that the actual unicorn was yet another jackass with a seashell glued to its head.

There are 2 problems here. First is messaging on the part of the leftists you identify who are (understandably imho but nevertheless) still in the disappointment/anger phase of watching what they thought was a reasonable compromise be shot down and/or are bad at explaining their positions in general. I'm probably in that camp to some extent, but it plays into the second problem which is

Everyone who is is to some degree happy to have Biden on the ballot seems to hear criticism of Biden and immediately stop listening. They think we are saying "BIDEN IS LITERALLY JUST TRUMP" because that's the extent of what they bother to hear and they are under the misguided and unfounded impression that someone's failure to toe the party line in 2016 is somehow responsible for Trump in the first place, which again, it isn't.

You also might be mistaking intragroup messaging that assumes everyone in the audience already has some grounding in the basics, for intergroup messaging that doesn't skip so many bullet points in the diagram. Equivalency between Trump and Biden doesn't make sense (obviously) if you're actually talking about Trump and Biden per se. But in the wider "leftist" community, they are just two points on the spectrum and Biden is much closer to Trump on that spectrum than he is to any actual leftists -- that's what they're saying, not that there is somehow literally no difference, even if the words they use don't bother to express that nuance. Discarding their arguments out of hand is a kind of willful ignorance that contributes nothing.

The main disconnect really seems (to me) to be in people's concepts of what constitutes meaningful political action in today's climate. If you take the established political system in the US as the fundamental and inescapable basis of social action, then of course Biden is preferable to Trump. That is to say, if you believe that your civic responsibility begins and ends with the vote you cast, then there's no question who you ought to be voting for -- and again the vast majority of Leftists will be voting for Biden.

But Leftists reject the idea that we can (and must) accomplish anything of any real civic value by casting votes in the system that exists right now. That system is too old, too slow and too corrupt to genuinely respond to the needs of the modern populace. It obviously can't just be abandoned and ignored (yet), but there is an expectation that individuals contribute to social change outside that system, including to the point that whatever the shitfucks in DC are doing becomes more or less irrelevant to the actual experience of everyday life in one or more places. It's incumbent upon each of us, to whatever degree we reasonably can, to take some kind of direct action and not simply throw up our hands and leave it at voting. The real disdain among Leftists isn't for Biden, but for people who think they've done their part when all they have done is vote for Biden (if they could do more than that).

TL;DR: Yeah, you misjudged my intent, but only because you've misjudged and oversimplified the political position of leftists in general.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Cramulus

#489
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 08:10:40 PM
Ultimately I want people to realize that there is no electoral solution to our problems.... What I want is for people to stop waiting around for the system to present them with the right option on a ballot (as if that's ever going to happen) and start engaging in direct action to alleviate the suffering around them and frustrate the machinery that drives that suffering. I don't want people to give up on hope, I want them to understand their hope is misplaced if it is in the existing political system at all.

:mittens:

I'm admittedly in a trough of cynicism right now... but it seems like we're all on this junky bus with no suspension or alignment, it keeps drifting off the road, sparks flying as it grinds against the guard rail. We're all coughing on smoke. Then someone on the bus goes "you idiot, let me drive". And they sit down in the drivers seat and guess what, the bus is still swerving all over the road, unable to drive in a straight line.

and you and I are sitting on the bus hoping that we'll eventually choose a good driver. But the alignment is fucked beyond what any driver can compensate for. Maybe nobody can drive this bus.

I am open to direct action. I don't know what effective direct action looks like in 2020. I've searched for mutual aid groups in my county but it doesn't look like there are any? (I found one group that's entirely composed of high school-age girls, so I don't think I'm gonna reach out to them) I hear people say that finding and supporting downballot candidates is really important too. I wish I could figure out something more concrete.



Edit to add a related article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/

altered

I wasn't oversimplifying in any way. I am taking actual quotes and putting them in ALL CAPS, nothing more.

Sure, maybe your leftist communities aren't doing outreach that way. But a lot of them are doing it that way and I can't hear whatever message you think is back there over the sound of "maybe if Trump wins 2020 people will realize we can't trust our system to fix things" — another actual quote.

The /only/ message they're sending is the one you call an oversimplification and misjudgement. And if the leftists are encoding a hidden message behind that, I don't feel like it's fair to get mad when people take it at face value rather than finding your PGP key scattered across your entire post history and converting the white space ratios of each post to encrypted text so you can unlock it and read the actual scriptures.

Also, before you say it, I've engaged some of them about it, and they said I was sealioning and probably a far-right sock. So you are literally the only person who I have the opportunity to put this shit to.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: altered on May 07, 2020, 09:21:45 PM
I wasn't oversimplifying in any way. I am taking actual quotes and putting them in ALL CAPS, nothing more.

Sure, maybe your leftist communities aren't doing outreach that way. But a lot of them are doing it that way and I can't hear whatever message you think is back there over the sound of "maybe if Trump wins 2020 people will realize we can't trust our system to fix things" — another actual quote.

The /only/ message they're sending is the one you call an oversimplification and misjudgement. And if the leftists are encoding a hidden message behind that, I don't feel like it's fair to get mad when people take it at face value rather than finding your PGP key scattered across your entire post history and converting the white space ratios of each post to encrypted text so you can unlock it and read the actual scriptures.

Also, before you say it, I've engaged some of them about it, and they said I was sealioning and probably a far-right sock. So you are literally the only person who I have the opportunity to put this shit to.

That's all a fair critique. As with any movement, there's a mass of undiplomatic and not particularly philosophically inclined cannon-fodder at the base. There's a lot of overlap with the purity-as-a-goal-by-itself crowd. It's like the Linux community that way - a whole lot of "if you don't get it by now you're too dumb to bother with", and that's sad and decidedly unhelpful. I can't change that about it, though. All I can do is be at least one point where the ideas behind it can get expressed and discussed in some way.

I think it's important to stop treating each other like the enemy. That's why I keep repeating this thing about berniebots didn't ruin Hillary's campaign. Leftists who won't compromise beyond Bernie Sanders are not an existential threat to whatever it is that the mainstream are trying to accomplish, and it doesn't hurt anything to just let them do their thing. And conversely, leftists shitting hate on liberals doesn't do anything except convince the liberals that they really are the enemy.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 09:09:52 PM
[It's incumbent upon each of us, to whatever degree we reasonably can, to take some kind of direct action and not simply throw up our hands and leave it at voting.

The next time that happens will be the first time since The Battle of Blair Mountain.

Which was 100 years ago.
Molon Lube

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 07, 2020, 10:32:31 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 07, 2020, 09:09:52 PM
[It's incumbent upon each of us, to whatever degree we reasonably can, to take some kind of direct action and not simply throw up our hands and leave it at voting.

The next time that happens will be the first time since The Battle of Blair Mountain.

Which was 100 years ago.

Yeah. Which is why I am voting for Biden, and also why I'm not happy about it and reserve the right to say so.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Faust

OK I've been thinking about this, ever since Dimo's thread.
And its something I feel is morally grey and horrible, and if anyone dislikes it, they need to understand I feel the same way:

I don't think the grudging "I guess I have no choice but to vote biden" is going to work

When the perceived choice is:
The lefts old boring and perceived  lame duck
The rights golden boy and or Troll Entertainment Factory

Biden has a snowballs chance in hell of winning.

He is going to lose the election because his supporters have to do it in spite of dull, tired persona, the weird out of touch comments and of course, the rape allegations.
Those same allegations when levelled at Mr "Grab them by the pussy", inexplicably increase trumps support, not reduce it.

If Biden is going to win, if there is any chance at all, everyone who wants trump out is going to have to focus on whatever few positives he has going. I say this because the only active discussions I am seeing of him at the moment from either side, is on the sexual assault stuff.

It means putting that discussion aside (at least in wider quarters than here), it can wait until day one of his presidency, but it will have to wait or he will lose.

I understand if moral integrity don't allow for that. The preferable option would be to break the system that makes shit float to the top, but apathy and being literally unable to congregate makes that a pipe dream.

Or maybe that is exactly how the con wins: forced to silence complaints about the lesser of two evils.
Sleepless nights at the chateau