Happy Sunday, or Monday, depending where in the world you are!
the thing is, every time i tune into local or even national politics its always some kindergarten level problem between two or three groups of people who through their kindergardenness should have lost the privilege to rule us on our behalf… but i dont make the rules, so i guess those kiddos can keep throwing shit at each other and not be adults about leading a country and what that should entail… its just laughable, so it is far easier, bequem geradezu, to just look away
I totally agree, mainstream media is a dog and pony show in most regards. The trick is to educate yourself on political economy, propaganda, and ideologies, so that you can extract underlying meanings behind much of media. For example, by coming to understand the concept of manufactured consent, and the role the private media in the U.S. plays in reinforcing state ideology, you can more clearly see the role that they played in creating support for actions the government intends to take, eg. The rapid spread and use of misinformation and failure to effectively fact check State Dept claims during the lead up to the war on terror. The media was effectively complicit in ensuring that any deviation from the party line they were to hold was sidelined, and even when presented, made into a straw man for ridicule. We can also look to former CIA and FBI officials who publicly acknowledge their use of human assets, either knowingly or unknowingly, to spread false information and create a desired public response.
I could say more, but I just got a video call, so I will have to stop here.
i think here in germany the problems are usually due to varrying levels of corruption, discrimination and nepotism
And to a large degree actually being entirely outdated in terms of worldview.
Over here in Germany we have politicians who plainly do not understand how the world works nowadays. Not even in the “conservative” way but genuinely in a “Holy shit this person is out of touch” way.
Also frightening news is the rise of neo Nazi supporters (AFD voters) over here.
Oh also don’t look up our age of consent. It’s INTENSELY outdated and not in the good way.
I could definitely see that, and I will defer to your knowledge, I am in no way knowledgeable about modern germanys political situation, nor their media apparatus. What do you think are the biggest issues faced by the general working class in Germany right now? If you don’t have time or don’t care to respond, no worries, I know this kinda stuff can be draining to discuss. If that’s the case, we could chat about something you’re excited for instead, I’m always up to learn something cool!
We need to organize outside of the current framework. They want to play circus then let them, but we are the ones lining up in the front row to watch the show. We can just hang out in the cheap seats and talk amongst ourselves on how to bring the big tent down.
How to achieve this I don’t know. That is dependant on your local area. It won’t be immediate, and it will take time before there is any sizeable movement to actual begin direct action, but it has been done many times in the past and it must happen again if we are going to see change.
Ignorance is the cloak of the Privileged.
I suspect it’s shorthand for “the person forced into prostitution through economic and social circumstances beyond their control”.
There’s no provenance for this actually being from Brecht, but it was originally published in Terra Nossa, a leftist periodical used to communicate Brazilian socialist ideas to English speaking Americans.
So weather or not Brecht, a Marxist, said those words or not: they’re not about voting!
but it applies to voting, we can argue about the effectiveness of voting as a tactic but people who vote are more politically engaged than the type of person described in the quote
this was published during the lost decade’s tumultuous end before brazil even had an election.
a few years after the ops quote was written inflation hit 84%, people were literally fighting in the streets.
it’s more than a little out of context to say that the quote applies to voting.
I think they’re saying that it applies equally to voting, whether that was the originally intended meaning or not.
You’re right, let me get pissed at everything that I have no real legal power to change.
Yes you absolutely should. Because when you get pissed about those things you will hopefully start to elect the right people who then HAVE the legal power to change them.
If voting didn’t matter, they wouldn’t work so hard to make it difficult.
The biggest and best changes have always come because the working class made it so.
Prior to universal suffrage, we had to fight and die for every small gain.
Since then, we have the luxury of just voting and protesting.
And when we look back at how much has been achieved, it’s just amazing.
My personal pet peeve is that we haven’t gotten around to getting tough with tax avoiders. Gotta start really heavily fining those advisors and enablers. Some probably should be jailed.
That’s the key to reducing inequality, which will then make the middle class much wealthier and stronger.
Here’s the problem: I’m just some random guy in a shitty red state, I HIGHLY doubt my one vote will actually change anything in this state, especially when it gets canceled out.
Some things to consider:
- Local elections and proposals…
- …make a huge impact to people’s lives
- …tend have quicker impacts
- …are far more heavily influenced by a single vote
- …can jump-start a leftist politician (or a policy position), getting them ready for state or national campaigns down the road
- Judges really friggin matter, and they aren’t categorized by party, so they’re a prime section for a well-informed voter to make a difference
- All elections cost money to win
- Even in deeply red or deeply blue states
- If the GOP lead shrinks from 20% to 15%, that will translate to more money the GOP has to spend next time around or else risk further slipping into single digits and making a new battleground state
- Momentum really helps keep costs low. It doesn’t seem like slipping from 20% to 15% should make the GOP panic, but it would
- Voter turnout is lower in more deeply red/blue states, meaning your vote actually counts more in closing the gap
- Getting your preferred candidate in office is not the only measure of electoral success
- Even candidates that get absolutely destroyed on election day can still shift the local or national conversation
- Candidates that perform better than pollsters expected can influence future candidates to pay more attention to the issues that brought out those extra voters
- There aren’t just voters staying home until there’s a candidate worth voting for – there are also good candidates who are staying home until there are enough voters to support them
- Milton Friedman, bastard that he was, was right about this:
Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.
- We want leftist ideas to already be lying around at the moment they are needed. We can’t wait until after the crisis has already occurred to start organizing and showing up. It’ll be too late.
- The Patriot Act was 131 pages, signed into law 45 days after 9/11. That wasn’t a reaction to 9/11, starting from scratch. Someone had a wishlist already, and they had a PowerPoint deck ready to go on September 12th full of proposals that Congress had already seen 100 times but was never ready to vote on before.
You’re right, your one vote won’t change anything, but you could organize around a shared need in your community, and make a significant impact there. That’s the thing, politics isn’t just voting. It’s all the little things that make up the political aspects of our lives.
I don’t think it’s healthy to expect everyone to be tuned in and turned on all the time. Nor do I think that watching the news regularly is a way to stay up to date. Rather, it’s just a way of inundating oneself with the perspectives of the elite. The best politics are in real life, in our every day situations.
What helps me is to build my frameworks and models of the system. As I gain understanding of the structures underlying our society, I can more easily identify and understand the intentions and desires of various groups around me. When I see something on the news, when I watch the news, I don’t just read what is written and accept or deny it as fact. I think, “Who’s material interests are served by this?”. I think, “has the conclusion been appropriately interrogated, and if not, what needs to be done to reach a meaningful understanding?” I will research the author of the article and the owners of the media in question, to determine where their biases will lie, because all of us are inherently biased in one way or another.
With a strong framework, traversing the media landscape is significantly less overwhelming, and making political change becomes a possibility when we stop expecting to elect or vote someone in who will change it, and create alternative structures that change it without reliance upon the paternalism of the state to save us. Create the structures that can create the change you need first, use them to make the changes, and let the government play catch up to you, instead of always begging for scraps from them.
See your problem is you still give a rats ass about what they tell you is and is not legal.
I live in Louisiana as a communist. Doesn’t stop me. The threat of violence is all the more reason we need to speak up when we can.
Either you die a slow death forced onto your knees in poverty or you stand up and die doing something about it.
All you have to lose are your chains.
