Michael

I disagree with your assertions that humans are intrinsically violent and that all change requires violence. Your perspectives are valid though, thanks for responding.

Most Democrats don’t realize that capitalism relies on actual slavery… presently. They don’t know that the products they consume revolve around supply chains that even include child slavery. They don’t know the actual effects of US imperialism, regime change, and third-world exploitation. They don’t know that an estimated 40% of US agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants — modern slaves, with no human rights. I’m not being hyperbolic at all, but I suggest everybody do their own research.

Democrats are propagandized to not want to come to terms with the fact that even first-world workers are slaves. They may not be “owned”, but damn near — everybody is getting a raw deal under capitalism besides those that extract the vast majority of value, wealth, power, influence, and control.

Democrats are subjected to intense campaigns that include gaslighting, propaganda, and coercion, while critical facts and the actual reality is veiled to them.

We just need an entirely new system.

The Democrats will never be truly progressive and they will always tease at being socialist. They don’t even address major crises, like the housing crisis, the health care crisis, or the economy — they sit there and gaslight us while playing the blame game to excuse their inaction.

We need progress towards solutions, and they can’t even address the issues. How can they work towards solutions if they can’t come up with any?

Well clearly we are already almost at a breaking point just 112 days after the start of Trump’s presidency. He is ignoring due process and established rights, he is foregoing his oath to uphold the constitution, and everybody in the administration is openly breaking laws left and right. The administration is also arguably in criminal contempt of court.

Personally, I don’t think we’ll even make it 2 years into the presidency before protests of a massive scale or a collapse.

1/3 of the country doesn’t vote in the presidential election, 2/3 are propagandized or coerced into voting for the duopoly. There are many, many people who voted for Trump that likely don’t approve of him now. There are many, many people who voted for Kamala who likely didn’t actually endorse her, they just didn’t want Trump.

If a revolution or similar event is going to happen, it’s during this presidency. Otherwise there will be no facade of democracy left to participate in when the next election is supposed to come around. The Democrats aren’t going to save us, the answer isn’t to sit back — the answer is to create a new system.

No, you’re perfectly fine, even if it were targeted at me I wouldn’t take it personally. I’m attempting to respond to you and also represent my own viewpoints for the thread — and I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.

I just think that without non-polarizing idealism and unity, the alternative is modern horror, a revival of barbarism, and destruction on a scale that the world has never seen before.

I don’t want to believe that will be the outcome, though. But it still won’t stop me from doing everything in my power to open and soften hearts so such a reality never comes to pass. I don’t think anybody really wants a world of renewed violence and suffering, when there already is so much suffering and violence.

I’m well aware of the realities of this world. Too aware, I’d say. Most people escape and distract themselves — or they are simply uninformed. I’d rather be the person who knows and still chooses to be perceivably naive, seeing the best in others — even if it’s not obvious or readily apparent on the surface.

Most people aren’t even aware. I’ll keep pushing that fact even if it angers people.

We all loosely share responsibility for Trump rising to power and maintaining said power, and the best way to remove his power is to pull the wool away from everybody’s eyes.

The Democrats do not represent the people or workers and they will not fight for anybody or anything besides capital. No matter how progressive they brand themselves in the future or how much they claim to want to fight oligarchy.

They have zero plan or power — they are not serious actors and my assessment of them has nothing to do with purity testing. You are either focused on solutions or you are not. We need solutions imminently — we need a new system.

We can co-create a new system as this one falls apart.

I am focused on solutions, not ideology. I do my best to not flaunt the label that most accurately aligns with my ideals (unless relevant) and my ideas generally resonate with Democrats and even some Republicans. People want change and people want progress, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.

Everybody, regardless of ideology, should be able to focus on solutions and the change we’d like to see — on what kind of world we want to live in. I want to live in a free and kind world, preferably without slavery. The vast majority of people likely feel similarly.

Even authoritarian socialists tend to resonate with that. They want to forcefully centralize power, resources, and control so eventually a more gentle world is born and the state is shed. They think force is necessary, I’m confident we can convince them otherwise.

Maybe it’s naive, but I can see a world that unifies under the banner of change and common sense solutions — a world that is able to cut past the propaganda and polarization and moves forward.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”

Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and mainstream media also played a pretty big role in Trump’s rise to power back in 2016.

Neither capitalist party is preferable and capitalism is destroying the planet.

Democrats are not able to fight extreme authoritarianism, fascism, and oligarchy. They have no power or political gravitas. They can’t even take a stand for universal health care…

Value judgements of which side is better are irrelevant: the capitalist US economy relies on various forms of slavery (even child slavery) and third-world exploitation. An estimated 40% of US agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants.

Modern slavery must be abolished. Neither party is calling for the end of slavery, let alone addressing it — it’s a carefully veiled reality.

The Progressives and Democratic Socialists who once voted Democrat (or who voted Democrat anyway) probably care a lot that they are disenfranchised by Democrats.

Both political parties in America represent capital instead of people.

I align with Libertarian Socialism, a left ideology. This is also a leftist/anarchist instance and community. We aren’t Republicans in disguise.

One would have to have some serious bad faith or cognitive dissonance to be able to argue that both sides are the same as a person who firmly aligns with right-wing, capitalist ideology. Republicans thrive on promoting their differences in contrast to Democrats.

Left = Socialism, Right = Capitalism.

If you look at the Political Compass you will see that there are also authoritarians and libertarians (not the right-wing, capitalist ideology) on the Y axis.

Left authoritarians or left libertarians both are well educated on what the left represents. They are able to see the stark contrast between capitalistic parties and socialism.

Democrats are not left-wing or leftist — they most certainly aren’t socialist. They only tease at being socialist.

Trump is a far-right fascist authoritarian, not the typical Republican we are used to.

They are pointing out validly that the Democratic party moved to the right to where centrists and old-school conservatives once sat.

And you’re allowed to disagree or see things differently.

Can you blame them when the US government has directly experimented on the American populace in past?

e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray

From the page:

Between 1949 and 1969, open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times.

239 open-air tests of biological agents in a 20 year period. Many, many people are still alive from that time period. It’s not that long ago.

Or more broadly, just look at this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

Do those pages inspire trust in the government and military? Would you know if you were being experimented on and gaslit?

Corporations engage in similar unethical behavior, like putting very toxic ingredients in products we consume or put on our bodies.

Instead of blaming or name-calling people who are paranoid, we need a society with a greater focus on human rights — with more regulation and oversight. A society that inspires trust, with the facts and independent review to back it up.

Capitalism is slavery with PR and programming to convince us to be helpless to change anything for the better and to look at various distractions instead of the reality.

I am not just talking about first-world exploitation, I am talking about literal slavery and child slavery, which our economies rely on — which we unknowingly rely on for many of our goods.

If you factor in 40% (or more) of US agricultural workers being undocumented immigrants, you don’t really have to look hard to see that slavery is literally everywhere. It may not be the chattel slavery of past, but it’s still modern slavery.

Almost all employment revolves around exploitation, hard hours, asking you to give more than you have for the sake of the business, and so forth, all the while many participating individuals are unable to afford health care or housing. I still liken that dynamic to be modern slavery, even if the individuals reside in the first-world.

We can rise above this, but we must identify what is blocking or stagnating progress to be able to change — such as accepting the reality at hand instead of turning our gaze away.

Doesn’t mean we have to play the blame game or reduce nuanced issues down to word-play and labels. A new system is likely the best solution.

Doesn’t mean I can’t participate in building class consciousness there.

The GOP is clearly heading the country to collapse, I am going to be the person calling for all of those things in their midst while people’s faith in the government and the country’s two-party system falters.

A surprising amount of contributors there share my sentiment, either on the fediverse or on reddit.

https://50501.chat/c/mirror is already on the fediverse!

💯%.

I hear you. I just wonder, will it be worth it in the end to for them to see to it that society rots and capitalism “wins”, by shutting down discourse in the limited places that it is able to exist?

I’d reason that it won’t be worth it. I just wish they could see it that way too.

That nuance is not important - it’s not worth wasting your breath on. If people focused on root causes of the dysfunction and the change needed to solve the issues plaguing our societies - we’d be much better off.

The nuance isn’t lost to me, I just don’t care to quantify it and then shout it out to the heavens. It makes no difference to me whether Elon Musk is worse than Bill Gates. They can duke that battle out themselves if they care to.