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Both things can be true.
One step at a time.Walking in the direction of only one.
Because the other is merely a stop on the way.If you don’t strive for the best option, you’ll settle for compromise.
Yeah you get the compromise first, people realize that it’s great, and push farther from that. Taking the big leap, while not impossible, is much harder and less likely to succeed the way you want.
But you don’t really seem to care about nuance and just want more excuses to insult people who aren’t as left as you are. Obviously even liberals think ubi is the best option
Obviously even liberals think ubi is the best option
And leftists don’t.
UBI is a bandage for capitalism, it’s not a real solution anyone should be pushing for and will remain at risk of being cut for as long as it’s ever implemented.
Is our next step going to be passing conservative legislation and pretending its a win for 15 years again?
Specifically that first one, then we break your legs and shackle you to something so you dont get ideas.
damn right. in the US, performing labor is seen as more important than human life. that tells you a lot.
And most of them defend it.
I guess it’s some variation of Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm syndrome was supposedly debunked recently.
What it actually looks to be is a stripped out and twisted version of meritocracy.
“I’ve worked for my achievements and earned my rights, everyone else should do the same or not share in my privileges.”
It is a super weird and self contradictory thing. Because yeah, the notion is that labor’s important because labor is how anything gets done, and without things getting done, how does anyone get to live a life at all? Entropy is real after all. So people who would do no labor yet get support from the rest of society are seen as execrable parasites.
And yet… the big goal is to become wealthy so that you can live on the labor of others. The whole enterprise of business is about playing the system so that you can get more for less personal labor. And the highest form of this is to work not at all yet receive even more than mere support: total indulgence.
So how are people at once shat upon for doing no labor but wanting basic support, while others are idealized for doing no labor but wanting total indulgence?
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I do wish the left broadly could unify under the idea that we need to make incremental progress.
A lot of people on this very site think there’s going to be a glorious people’s revolution any day now. I could spend hours describing how unrealistic that fantasy is, but I think more people rather live with their indulgent fantasies than go out and plant trees that they will never sit in the shade of.
I do wish the left broadly could unify under the idea that we need to make incremental progress.
That’s literally been the last century + of western politics, and uh we’ve all seen how that’s turning out.
I wish centrists could unify under the idea that we need to make a complete and total overhaul. That they could recognize that the climate alone will kill us if we don’t do, let alone the fascists and capitalists at our back.
Oh man am I ever with you. I’m absolutely an idealist, I agree with the OP’s sentiment. But I will absolutely support anyone with any ideology that gets us closer. Small steps are easier to take, this bullshit that everyone thinks we need the perfect candidate with the one weird trick.
See what that got us. I have no goddamned idea where to go from here. I’ll support any ham sandwich that drags us in the right direction.
go out and plant trees that they will never sit in the shade of
I forget about this colloquialism, but find it a good description for how I try to be day to day
That incremental progress has been so slow its reversing into fascism, congratulations this is the enviable outcome of reformism.
Welcome back Karl Kautsky. Excited for World War 1?
Well the only people who are talking about stopping at one state are the centrists arguing we must ‘compromise’ and accept the top only.
I fully support going to both…
While that’s true, I think by positioning ourselves at the 2nd state, it allows us to “negotiate” our way down to getting the 1st state. Its kind of like haggling. If you start at the more extreme position, opposition will (in an ideal scenario) try to find a middle ground to agree on. And that middle ground would look like the 1st state. It’s a way of combatting the ratcheting effect.
Are you aware of how many people starved when farms were collectivized in the Soviet Union?
It is possible to improve on the methods and priorities of previous attempts.
The problem with the previous attempts was prioritizing ideology over real life problems. Doesn’t sound like socialists are capable of understanding why that’s a problem because they believe that conforming to ideology will magically solve all problems. Just like they believed that in the Soviet Union… which is what caused the famines.
The problem with the previous attempts was prioritizing ideology over real life problems
It was actually not the case, the USSR was the most materialist and least idealist country. The 1929 collectivization drive was kicked together with the first 5-year economic plan of the Soviet Union, which drove a growth of 10%+ in economic output YEARLY during the following decade. This was a necessary preparation measure against the constant threat of external invasion for the sin of being communist, as demonstrated during the Russian Civil War when the Reds were invaded by England, France, the USA, Italy, France and Germany, all of whom helped the Whites in hopes of restoring absolutist monarchy and the Russian Empire. Stalin famously gave a speech in 1931 saying that the USSR was 50-100 years behind in industrialization and they had 10 years to make up for it or they would be crushed. 10 years later, Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
If it hadn’t been for the industrial boom made possible by the rapid collectivization of agriculture, the Soviets would have lost to the Nazis, leading to the extermination of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans according to the Generalplan Ost, ideologically very similar to the contemporary genocide of Palestinians by Isn’treal as an attempt of settler colonialism. Additionally, the industrialization led to the total elimination of famine in a formerly backwater feudal Russian Empire, raising the life expectancy from about 30 years in the 1920s to 60+ years by 1955.
There were mistakes and failures in the collectivization policy which led to a degree of unnecessary suffering, but these weren’t due to idealism, Marxist-Leninists are fundamentally materialist in their analysis which is the polar opposite of idealism, they were the consequence of lack of knowledge and of hurries to do the first successful complete collectivization of land of a nation in human history.
The 1929 collectivization drive was kicked together with the first 5-year economic plan of the Soviet Union, which drove a growth of 10%+ in economic output YEARLY during the following decade.
I didn’t know socialists were GDP-obsessed neoliberals here, socialism is good because it outpaces capitalism in GDP growth? How nice.
and they had 10 years to make up for it or they would be crushed. 10 years later, Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
And five years before that, Stalin was collaborating with the Nazis. Strange.
If it hadn’t been for the industrial boom made possible by the rapid collectivization of agriculture, the Soviets would have lost to the Nazis, leading to the extermination of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans according to the Generalplan Ost, ideologically
And at the same Stalin was deporting millions as part of his policy of russification. Do you apologize for all the other Allied Powers war crimes during WW2 as well? Critical support to FDR and the USA war machine?
they were the consequence of lack of knowledge and of hurries to do the first successful complete collectivization of land of a nation in human history.
Socialism is when the government does stuff
I didn’t know socialists were GDP-obsessed neoliberals here, socialism is good because it outpaces capitalism in GDP growth? How nice
As a matter of fact socialists are concerned with economic output, but not GDP. If you bothered to open a book, you’d know that the USSR did have a macroeconomic variable that guided some of its policy regarding growth of production, but it was not based off total economic output, only of agriculture and industry. It was Net Material Product. Industrial output wasn’t important because number go up, it was important because it allowed the USSR to become the nation manufacturing most tractors by the late 30s, and it allowed the manufacturing of the rifles, tanks, planes, munitions and artillery that enabled the defeat of Nazism.
And five years before that, Stalin was collaborating with the Nazis
You probably mean two years before that, in 1939, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact happened, but you don’t really care about what happened, you’re just replicating anticommunist propaganda because that’s your preconceived view. If you care to read a bit on Molotov Ribbentrop, I suggest you to read a previous comment I wrote about it. Suffice it to say that Molotov is the surname of the foreign affairs commissar that was put in place that very year after 10 years of Maxim Litvinov being the foreign affairs representative, whom if you really care to read about the topic, will know staunchly argued in favour of a collective assault on Germany by France, Britain and the USSR, honouring the mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia together with France as an alternative to the Munich Agreements, and led the USSR to being the only country in Europe offering help to republicans and anarchists in Spain fighting fascism 3 years earlier in the Spanish civil war which happened on the opposite corner of the continent. Europe would rather see the USSR destroyed by Nazism and that’s why they rejected every attempt of a mutual defense agreement, even the one where Stalin offered to send one million soldiers to France in exchange for a mutual defense agreement against Nazism, which the French refused. If you still, after learning that, believe that the Soviets “collaborated with Nazism”, you simply have an anticommunist agenda, because that statement represents the opposite of what really happened in the 1930s Europe.
And at the same Stalin was deporting millions as part of his policy of russification
Millions were deported, but there was no policy of Russification. The only racist deportation events that took place were those of the Koreans and the Crimean Tatars, both horrible mistakes of racist policy that we should criticize, but let’s remind ourselves this is the 1930s, in the US black people couldn’t sit next to whites in the bus. Stalin’s position in the party in 1917 was commissar of nationalities, because he had written an important essay on the problem of how to achieve the preservation of nationalities while at the same time being international solidarity communists.
The USSR was amazingly progressive in terms of diversity and respect of nationalities for its time, which is why each republic had the right to determine its own official language (see Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Estonian, etc.), most books and newspapers in those republic were printed in the official language, people had a right to an education in their own language, and while Russian was encouraged as a língua franca, it was not generally imposed instead of smaller local languages. For example, Mari language in the Republic of Mari El was taught in Mari El schools all the way to the 90s, when schools stopped teaching in Mari and started teaching in Russian. If you look at the number of Estonian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Georgian or Armenian speakers over time you will find that at least it’s stable, with most of those languages growing over time. You can compare that with for example Occitan language in southern France, which in the 1920s had 1.5mn speakers and now barely has 100k. That’s what successful policy of Frenchification looks like, yet I don’t think I’ve seen you once complain about Occitan people.
Do you apologize for all the other Allied Powers war crimes during WW2 as well?
Please go through your comment history and tell me how many comments you have making it a point to talk about western power war crimes not as a tool to shit on the Soviet Union, but to actually criticise them.
Socialism is when the government does stuff
Socialism is famously when you get almost total land redistribution among peasants in collective farms, yes, I don’t even see your point here.
Industrial output wasn’t important because number go up, it was important because it allowed the USSR to become the nation manufacturing most tractors by the late 30s, and it allowed the manufacturing of the rifles, tanks, planes, munitions and artillery that enabled the defeat of Nazism.
Critical support to FDR and the AFL and their joint venture of industrial policy to massively increase the United States industrial base to defeat the nazis?
If you still, after learning that, believe that the Soviets “collaborated with Nazism”, you simply have an anticommunist agenda, because that statement represents the opposite of what really happened in the 1930s Europe.
They literally worked together to carve up Poland and signed a Mutual Defense Pact with each other while the USSR supplied the Nazi regime with raw materials as part of their trade agreements. Everything else you’ve talked about is just Realpolitik.
The USSR was amazingly progressive in terms of diversity and respect of nationalities for its time, which is why each republic had the right to determine its own official language (see Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Estonian, etc.), most books and newspapers in those republic were printed in the official language, people had a right to an education in their own language, and while Russian was encouraged as a língua franca, it was not generally imposed instead of smaller local languages.
I don’t disagree. Lenin was right about The National Question and the Soviet policy of Korenizatsiia (a theory of Stalins creation) was good. I will give you that, BUT Stalin reversed all of this with his mass deporations and genocide of Ukranians with the cultivation of the Soviet-Russian National Identity culminating in the inter-imperialist literally termed “Great Patriotic War”!
Please go through your comment history and tell me how many comments you have making it a point to talk about western power war crimes not as a tool to shit on the Soviet Union, but to actually criticise them.
4/15 of my comments are literally about criticizing a western powers crimes (although, not for WW2)!
Socialism is famously when you get almost total land redistribution among peasants in collective farms, yes, I don’t even see your point here.
Land reform is a petty-bourgeoisie demand culminating in the recreation of the capitalist social relation and the destruction of the Peasant class. Many capitalist countries have undergone the same transformation, just without the level of state interference and control the Soviet Union had. Just because the state manages the farms does not mean it is not capitalism as the fundamental mechanism of capital accumulation remains.
So you’re saying it’s fine that 8 million people starved because ideological bullshit goals were achieved? Fucking commie Marie Antoinette over here. Let them eat ideology!
So you’re saying it’s fine that 8 million people starved because ideological bullshit goals were achieved?
Not because ideological goals were achieved. If you read my comment you’ll see I’m concerned with material outcomes. Eliminating Nazism saved tens of millions of lives. Industrializing the Soviet Union eliminated hunger and gave universal healthcare, saving tens of millions of lives. Compare the life expectancy of the USSR in 1929 with that of Brazil 1929 (countries with similar level of development) and you’ll see that the rapid industrialization by the 1970s had led to such massive improvements of life expectancy that tens of millions of lives were saved in comparison with Brazil, no other country industrialized so quickly up to that point in history. I care about saving tens of millions of lives, yes, and you’re also inflating the number of deaths from starvation
This is a fallacy. You’re assuming only socialism in Russia could’ve lead to the defeat of the Nazis. I’m explaining the Nazis were stupid (as all fascists are) and their defeat was inevitable, but you’re completely what I’m saying. You’re also ignoring that fact that socialism is not required for a country to industrialize.
This is something like the anthropic principle. Just because it went A -> B -> C doesn’t mean it’s not possible to get to C any other way. Socialism is not a requirement for industrialization and socialism is not a requirement for defeating fascism. It’s just a flawed system that a lot of people starved under.
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You think you’re ever going to get the working class on board with a socialist movement by using pretentious latin phrases?
The Kolkhoz system in the Soviet Union is really not to dissimilar to modern farming practices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz
The system of petty/peasant farming is over. Successful farms are already “collectivized”, and hire farmhands to do the work.
https://www.epi.org/blog/how-many-farmworkers-are-employed-in-the-united-states/
WTF are you talking about? Undocumented immigrants are the peasant class of the USA. Are you so out of touch you don’t know who harvests the food you eat?
Proletarians work for a wage, peasants do not. The undocumented immigrants on USA farms are proletarians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant
Your main claim was that, the Soviet Union “collective” farming system caused famine; but in reality it was just the conversion from traditional feudal peasant farming to modern capitalist farming, entirely orchestrated by the state.
Modern farms are already “collectivized” and so your claim does not hold water or is at best accurate but completely irrelevant to the modern day.
Well you’re a pedantic one aren’t you? Undocumented immigrants don’t have the rights of a citizen and therefore are a lower class. They work in the agricultural sector for the landowner while having no rights. That’s a peasant to me, but go a head and continue be pedantic about everything to avoid having any new thoughts.
Are you aware of how many tens of millions of people were saved from Nazi genocide thanks to the industrialization that underpinned the collectivization of farms in the Soviet Union?
Are you aware that many other countries industrialized without collectivizing farms? That’s not at all a requirement for industrialization and doesn’t have anything to do with the Nazis stupidly entering into a two front war because of the general incompetence that goes hand and hand with fascism.
Are you aware that many other countries industrialized without collectivizing farms?
Yes, the other countries at the time who had industrialized had done so through slavery (USA) or colonialism (UK, France, Germany, Japan), all of which killed tens of millions more than collectivization failures ever did.
Nazis are stupid, but don’t diminish the Soviet war effort. 80% of dead Nazi soldiers died in the Eastern Front, and it costed the lives of 25 million Soviet heroes to achieve this.
Fuck the Soviets. The reason we went to war is because the Nazis invaded Poland, and the Soviets were complicit in that. Just because Hitler was a dumbass and attacked the Soviet Union doesn’t mean we owe that fucked up government anything. I respect the soldiers that fought despite the fact they had that asshole Stalin oppressing them, but I have no respect for the Soviet Union or Stalin because of the events of WWII, and neither should you.
Liberals watching fascism evolve in real time: “Fuck your guns! Give them over!”
Leftists: “Uh, hell no, are you crazy?”
Liberals: “You’ll get KILLED!”
Leftists: “Yeah, that’s going to be the outcome whether you fight or not.”
Liberals: “Where my 2A people at?!” (got a burn in there. tee hee hee)
Me: “I have loads of guns, practice best I know how, several times a week. Tell me what you would have me do.”
Liberals: <FUCKING SILENCE>
Never heard a single word, not one reply to that question. Here’s your chance to shine!
I haven’t seen masked men in my town. None have come for my brown, legal, immigrant wife. As of this year, I am not outdoors unarmed. Indoors? You can’t catch me shitting without a firearm in reach. Insane? Abso-fucking-lutly insane. No one should live like that. But this is where we’re at in America.
Want to hear something nuts? I was just now showing my wife that I can buy all the gear these fascists are wearing on Amazon.com. Yes, POLICE patches, all of it.
So, to sum, they’ve demonstrated that they’ll kill me. They’ve demonstrated that anyone can look like them. You go figure out how to take that information.
Ban for “inciting violence” in 3, 2…
You want to do something? Start organising revolutionaries. Take your time doing so, as they key word here is “organise”. Having a bunch of trigger happy gun hippies walking around helps nobody.
Find some very painful points to hit, then hit them.
Don’t be deterred if the state starts calling you terrorists.
I dont think organizing can be done at this time.
I think it has to be a Franz Ferdinand type thing.
Franz was part of the Black Hand and they organized the whole thing - which fell apart. Franz lucked out as the car detoured past a cafe he was having a coffee in after giving up.
Franz was the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. You’re thinking of Gavrilo Princip.
Hahaha yeah, that was a pretty big slip up.
Assassination of a single individual isn’t going to change the entire system. Tearing it all down and rebuilding should be the goal, not kicking the can down the road.
You don’t get an answer because people get banned for typing the correct answer.
I feel like you hear the top line because those specific liberals are trying to convince independents, moderates, conservatives, and people on the right to agree on at least something. Many of the people they’re trying to convince would give a big “NO” if they didn’t include that 40 hours part.
The fact that there isn’t even a “YES” with the 40 hours part caveat is the bad sign.
I don’t think most of the people labeled as liberals would disagree with what the people labeled leftist are saying, but their trying to convince the other people that aren’t even bought in to the first step.
This is also an issue where the people that don’t want to help others have over 50% of the power in the US federal government currently.
Our energy should be focused on bringing these progressive help options to everyone at the state level right now to have the greatest chance of getting these programs implemented.
liberals are trying to convince independents, moderates, conservatives, and people on the right to agree on at least something.
the people that don’t want to help others have over 50% of the power in the US federal government currently
The problem doesn’t just lie in that there is conflict between people who do and do not want to help one another. It’s that there is a whole system in place that rewards the largescale harming of people.
Trying to convince people to want to help each other is a challenge and confronts people’s individualism. That’s not the issue.
But the notion of agreeing on something with people who actively require harming others is fundamentally destructive to that cause.
The problem doesn’t just lie in that there is conflict between people who do and do not want to help one another. It’s that there is a whole system in place that rewards the largescale harming of people.
I agree with you, the fact that there is an entire media environment geared towards fueling this as well does not help anyone. I feel that voting system changes and trying to implement a broader version of the Fairness Doctrine at the state level might help remedy some of the issues.
Trying to convince people to want to help each other is a challenge and confronts people’s individualism. That’s not the issue.
I agree, this is one of the challenges but not the main issue.
But the notion of agreeing on something with people who actively require harming others is fundamentally destructive to that cause.
These are partly the consequences of several things in one, many of them purposefully orchestrated and snowball. Namely, the defunding of education, a culture of superiority, the mass broadcasting of non-experts and personalities, and espionage to help prop up the worst and most divisive opinions.
The unfortunate reality is that there are lots of people out there feeling hurt. This hurt that they feel can very often be entirely justified as well. Maybe their town has had a slump in well-paying, blue collar jobs. Jobs that were once guaranteed to the level of people working at the same job as one of their parents and grandparents. Some of those blue collar workers were frustrated and then here comes the snake-oil pitch telling them that they lost their job, promotion, or higher pay to immigrants -when in reality it could have been to many other things like automation.
Many of those same people aren’t inherently against anyone, but when they feel lied to or taken advantage of then it makes their blood boil. Many of those same people could be convinced that it’s actually the billionaires taking their money and their jobs. From the sounds of it, Bernie Sanders has been having success with that message this year in rural West Virginia. There are a lot of voters out there with lower access to information.
I believe that if we do get a campaign going with progressive leaders that we could make some real inroads even in these communities and make it clear that it’s the billionaires that are making life in their communities more difficult.
Liberals: We should compromise with the fascists and blame trans people for our incompetence
Leftists: DOWN WITH FASCISM AND DOWN WITH BIGOTRY
This misses the point. The point is no one, especially someone who has given back to society by preforming labor, should be left out in the cold.
I think the point is nobody should live in poverty. Fullstop. Addendum to that, workers should be paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. But the first sentence is the core of everything.
They don’t agree with that, they think that if you have a job you are more worthy of being allowed to live.
Ok, I’ll bite.
I think that if you contribute to society you are more worthy of being allowed to live. Live meaning receiving a living wage, not life or death.
“Have a job” is one way to do that and there are many many situations in which it is more difficult for some people to “contribute” than others. But to paint anyone’s political opinion as black and white is a real right wing"ish" style attack.
It sucks, but the libs are the lefts conduit for change. Without them we will be stuck leaning farther and farther right as the right leaners continue to actually work together to take our rights away and we waste our time infighting over stupid shit like this.
I think that if you contribute to society you are more worthy of being allowed to live. Live meaning receiving a living wage, not life or death.
What did the words ever do to you, to be abused in such a way?
To live is to live.
To need any “wage” to do that is already permitting the wrong frame to be placed around this piece of reality.
Everyone should live. Full stop.
If you want nice things, gold trim and giant tvs and monster trucks, then by all means, use a wage for it.
Nobody should fear for their life because they do not labor.
Just needed to clarify that. Had I not, I could see my words being misconstrued to meaning I believe people who don’t have a job should be killed.
You missed their point.
No one, not only workers.
Still not getting it. These people have sacrificed a substantial part of their life and have nothing to show for it.
You don’t get it, you don’t have to sacrifice anything to have value as a human.
Why do Libs always have to dehumanise people?
If you work 100 or 0 hours a week, you have exactly the same right to basic life needs.
You dont get. Beyond your idea utopian society the society these people labor to build has forsaken them.
I don’t understand why you’re having such a hard time with what they’re explaining to you. No one is disagreeing that working people are getting shafted.
Yeah it’s pretty stupid to slave away under liberal capitalism and expect anything. We clearly don’t live in a utopia, yet these people act like we do and expect to be rewarded by it.
Once people start living in reality and realising our innate worth is more than a number on a corporate timesheet, maybe we can get somewhere.
We could talk but their isn’t some brain trust that is just waiting to be awaken. There is no grand self actualization. Quit wishing for it. People are dumb, scared, complacent creatures. Quit waiting for them to come together, hold hands, and stop the violence.
Thats reality.
We don’t need a brain trust, we need you lot to start using what you already have.
Reality is, as long as people like you argue and fight to defend the harmful status quo, things will only ever get worse. But this attitude is so deeply ingrained into you, that you can’t even see that all humans have the same worth.
People are dumb, scared, complacent creatures.
False. Why do you refuse others their dignity? Is it because you have lost respect for yourself?
People are dumb
them
Hmm.
It is not that working shouldn’t give anything beyond what you get for not working, but that everyone should have access to money to live for.
I am from Denmark and here you earn a fair living wage for most jobs and you have plenty of opportunity to get a high paying job. But for those who are unable to work or work as much or for some other reason are unemployed, they still get paid a small amount of money that they can live for and still has access to things like free health care and free education.
So if you “sacrifice a substantial part of your life” to make a lot of money, you can do that and earn the luxury you get from that. The system just ensures that everyone gets enough to live for, whether they are working or not.
People are saying “no one should live in poverty,” not “no one should live in poverty, by which we mean no one should make money for their labor.” You’re tilting at windmills.
I think youre tilting at the windmills. To say a liberal doesnt believe every one deserves a basic standard of living just isn’t true and is not what was said in the first statment.
Consider an example of a women, who does not work but raises childern and perform other chores to support her husband.
She is quite important in contribution to the society, but when we talk just about working people, we overlook her.
And I am sure there are many such people who are critical for the function of the society, but do not “make money” (i,e wage labor nor even owning capital for that matter)
This is why, IMO, this distinction of “people who work” is counter productive. Everyone should be able to live without poverty.
She is quite important in contribution to the society, but when we talk just about working people, we overlook her.
…even then, since her contribution is to her own household should that marriage collapse society decides that not only is she owed a share of their produced assets to date but also a share of his future production for her part in enhancing it to date (alimony), including the requirement that he must continue to produce at that level at a minimum (aka alimony is based on what a judge believes you can earn, not what you actually are earning). Sometimes this also includes a share of any future retirement income as well.
Everyone should be able to live without poverty.
Ultimately, what you would consider living without poverty requires the labor of some number of people to maintain, and eventually the question of why they do that labor for people who don’t do that labor will be asked, by them if not by you. Usually the answer is that those people are doing other labor which benefits the first group, usually abstracted out to some generalized representation of debt (aka money).
a women
I will never understand why this particular error is so common, yet it seems no one ever makes the similar mistake “a men” when referring to a single man.
someone who has given back to society by preforming labor
These are two things that are often lumped together but don’t really have anything to do with one another.
You can be employed and give absolutely nothing back to society (tbh, probably the majority office workers are in that category). You can even be employed and take from society (looking at you, people working in e.g. the tobacco industry).
And you can be unemployed and massively give back to society. Just look at the people who do voluntary work or at the millions of moms and dads who are raising the next generation that will keep society running, all completely without compensation.
I spend all day sitting in front of a PC so that numbers on the screen of some investor go up. That’s not giving back to society.
… fun argument. Maybe someone else will want to engage it.
It is called the Nirvana falacy: rejection of anything that is not an immediate perfect solution.
A road is crossed in many steps, not one giant leap.
Ironic.
At no point in this meme or thread, has the argument ever been ‘We should never go to the 1st step’, it is entirely 'We should aim for the 2nd step, and don’t let the Libs stop you at the 1st.
The only people who reject anything, are the libs who reject the notion that you can work towards the 2nd step.
The only people who reject anything, are the libs who reject the notion that you can work towards the 2nd step.
Do they? In my short lived experience its us leftist that reject just about everything. We don’t engage in elections do we don’t change policy. I can’t even get people around my local DSA to shift toward open source. My pitch there is that we are moving to a parallel economy and independence from capital.
This meme is a microcosm of why we don’t have a real movement. The lib is broadly in agreement and gives us an angle for policy change, but the lefty, and echoed by fellow leftist in the comments, are flipping the table.
It does not apply here to smth that is this fundamental. Living outside of poverty for everyone, is very fundamental and basic, not smth that should ever be compromised upon
especially someone
This word is the issue that is grinding gears and it’s carrying a heavy weight.
What’s your take on handicapped people?
Is someone who has worked 20 years in a factory and got run over by a forklift and lost both legs somehow worth more than someone who was born without legs to begin with?
I believe a society can be measured by how it treats its weakest member. Or the actual quote:
the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members
None of this prohibits anyone from making more money by working harder than others.
The moment when a society starts arguing over who is more eligible for welfare, that’s when that society moves down to the lowest level that it’s willing to offer.
Youre dismissing the actual need to appeal to an audience. Even those who do not share your particular philosophy.
Its simply an appeal to the capitalist or blue and white collar workers alike.
Some have a living wage. Some take full advantage of the current system and have no qualms.
If your point is that we shouldn’t attempt to appeal to them because its fruitless that is fine. Just understand, the message was not for you.
People with disabilities generally want to and can work, even if some can only do a reduced workweek and possibly need suitable workplaces and jobs (as we all do). Establishing full employment and guarantee of jobs to anyone who can work while accommodating the needs of the people who can’t work to the same degree and providing equally for them, is the goal IMO.
But that would require empathizing with them and just ewe… /s
Why especially?
Why ‘why especially’?
This is a bit like responding “All lives matter” when hearing about Black Lives Matter.
It’s more like “End Slavery” not “End Debt Bondage”.
One is clearly more serious than the other and it’s not the 40 hr workers.
I’m sure you can get into the anti-confederate nature of that.
Progressive purity tests help the billionaires and right more than they help us make progress toward a future were common people aren’t treated like trash.
Nothing and no one will ever be good enough for some of these people, so fascists will continue to keep their power.
Lots of people are good enough, they’re just not lifetime DNC candidates with compromised allegiances and paid by lobbyists.
Such a low hurdle will forever be insurmountable to some of these centrists.
Ask the top to apply their thinking to retirement. That might make them think a little deeper.
“Oh it’s different, we’ll have earned our welfare” - Liberals
OP doesn’t understand what these terms mean.
You think the democrats are radical leftists, don’t you?
No? But you probably think Trump is since you’re comparing liberals and leftists.
I am one of the radical leftists.
Why would I think right wingers are us?
Liberals are the opposite of authoritarians, they aren’t left or right but a description of people’s view towards government regardless of political leanings.
Communists, Anarchists, Libertarians are all examples of liberals.
Trump is an authoritarian which aligns with your stated view of leftists not being liberal (being authoritarians)
Those are not liberals.
Liberalism is free trade, it’s private ownership of property - both right wing. At the tail end of liberalism is a little bit of social freedom which is somewhat left, once you remove all the qualifiers Libs put on welfare.
I did state you didn’t know the term.
It’s nuts to me that “everyone should have access to housing, food, healthcare, and education” is somehow a radical take. It’s literally nothing but beneficial to society at large.
I am a Leftist and agree with the Leftists take but the Liberal in this meme has a more effective message. The majority of people have issues neurologically with truly caring about things they can’t at least imagine affecting them and there are a huge number of people working their asses off 40+ hours a week while struggling to get by. Not that we should abandon the elderly or disabled but we should be diverse in our messaging and who it targets.
The leftists have the easiest message, it’s provide for everyone. It can literally effect anyone.
The liberal messaging muddies the message up, making it unimaginable that it could effect people outside of the narrow scope it presents
Liberals: Works 40 hours a week.
Leftists: Whines 40 hours a week without working.
Conservative weirdo says what, what are you work-maxed
If taking care of a family, working, and not demanding entitlements without putting any effort into anything like the billionaires and bottom feeders makes me conservative then I guess I’m conservative, even though I’d rather see conservatives thrown into the everglades one by one.
Seriously though, what have you actually contributed to society other than Lemmy platitudes?
Why are disadvantaged people “bottom feeders”? That’s a very common conservative sentiment.
Not everybody is as strong or as able as you, and not everybody has had your privilege. I don’t need to know your story to say that and I don’t give a fuck about how hard you think you’ve had it. You at least have a functioning body, many people that you might consider “bottom feeders” don’t have that.
It would be desirable to everyone for life to be easier for everyone. Just because you may have struggled, making things better for everyone doesn’t invalidate that - no matter how much you might kick and scream at the notion of giving everybody the right to a dignified life.
Ok. Brevity is the source of wit, so what were you saying again🫣🫣🫣
Oh wow, I didn’t know you were a socialist! The USSR famously had 40 hour working week and there was 0% unemployment rate. I’m glad to see more people supporting socialism <3
that’s not how it works though
Neither is how it works, the point is to change how it works so that we achieve these goals.
that’s way beyond the function of a meme pic though
No shit. If it worked a different way people wouldn’t be talking about it.
What are you talking about? When i was born in the '80s, being unemployed for more than a few month was criminal offense in most socialist European countries. Leftism is beneficial in moderation, but definitely not every leftism is bestism if this is your only criteria for “bestism”
Which European countries were socialist in the 80s?
Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Chekoslovakia, Poland, the whole USSR. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense) Yugoslavia and Albania were socialist too but I’m not sure if there was law against unemployment there.
The soviet union was an authoritarian one party state my guy
I agree. But I don’t get why are you saying it like that. It was a socialist, authoritarian state. All of these countries were at the time. Maybe I’m missing something.
How can the workers be in control of the means of production if they aren’t even in control of their own lives? What a silly thing to say.
To be honest I do feel a bit silly continuing this. However, are you trying to say that socialism is not a leftist mode of government? How would you categories the policies of socialist/communist dictatorships, centrist? Workers were not above the law, and had no input what sad laws were. But workers did own the factoryies and the kolhoz. Most of these governments collapsed because they lost the support of the proleteriat (workers). It was not the will power of the political elites that hold it to gether, but the millions of workers sincere belief that they are making the world a better place.
Social democracy is good to live in; yeah true. Leftism (in general) is bestism; hell no.
