What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

I was saying boo urns

I’m one person

And?

Are you saying you shouldn't be taken seriously, that you don't mean what you write and that you aren't trying to influence thought or bend the shape of the conversation when you join in? Are you just full of shit or are you serious?

Because if you're full of shit, fuck off and let the adults talk.

What makes you think that this will stop at all of the people you think deserve to die, given how this scenario has played itself out in literally every society that's done it?

― shout-out to his family (DJP)

i don't think anybody deserves to die, djp. more to the point, i don't decide who lives and who dies.

i know what these people did. i know there are a lot of people on the left who would like to do that some more. they are called "tankies" and i do not talk to them, will not work with them, do not have common cause with them.

i don't talk to republicans either.

the problem may be "people" in general - and I don't the root cause of racism is "people", I think the problem is, specifically, _White_ people. White anti-Black racism didn't start with capitalism, and i don't expect it to end with capitalism. i also don't believe it will end, _ever_, under capitalism. ending capitalism is, to me, a necessary but not sufficient step in addressing White dehumanization, violence, and abuse towards Black lives. ultimately, as a White person, I cannot, _will_ not, _ever_ end anti-Black racism. I am too embedded in systems of privilege to ever be able to do that.

i have a tendency, djp, a tendency towards pessimism, to fatalism, to seeing the possible negative effects of any change more than i can see any positive effects. i have had to work, have to work, very hard to open myself up to change. it terrifies me. i have a lot to lose. you certainly have more to lose than i do, are at greater _risk_ than i am. everything you're saying is true and correct and honest. you have an absolute inalienable right to it.

i'm willing to take certain risks. i do what i can to protect other vulnerable people, to protect people i care about, but you're right not to trust me. you shouldn't trust me. i'm White, I'm not going to do a better job at that than any other White person. at the same time you do _deserve_ more, not just more than you have, but more than you can even _hope for_ under the current way of doing things in america. you have the right to give that up, to decide to do without, to, well, _compromise_. i do a lot of compromising myself. i'm just not able to compromise everything you are.

I love the "human nature" argument, it whips every time

It's not 'nature' per se, but given our record as a species it's only fair to assume we'll fuck it up again and again.

*track record

This is a copout to keep from admitting the culpability of White European societies for the violence they committed against the various nations of Africa and carried with them into their colonies. If you blame "capitalism", you can foist it off on an economic system and the people in that system are off the hook.]

i want to say that this is like saying that if you blame "fascism" for the third reich you foist the violence they committed on jews/gays/minorities off on an ideological system and the people in that system are off the hook. but honestly it's making me think more deeply about the relationship between capitalism/colonialism and violence. i think it's pretty clear that ideological systems like capitalism drive a lot of violence - on the other hand violence has an independent life to it that isn't so easily linked to an ideological system. it does sort of have its own internal sustaining logic. i think that's a good reason to mistrust revolutionaries.

on the other hand, have we really come to the point where taxing rich people and defunding police is equated with revolutionary violence? because that's absurd.

I am a moderate; I do think some ppl probably deserve to die for the misery they've inflicted, but I do not nominate myself for the selection committee.

most revolutionaries I know (who are, it should be said, very far from an all-white lot) would be fine with merely jailing them forever and relieving them of their money

Quiet Revolutions have been known to work, sort of.

I would file 'taxing rich people and defunding police' under that category.

DJP I’m serious but I don’t represent everyone. or anyone else. obviously

I know “death to america” is marginal enough within most of the USA to be dismissed as unserious but it’s actually quite a popular position elsewhere

on the other hand, have we really come to the point where taxing rich people and defunding police is equated with revolutionary violence?

I have never said this. I believe I am on record as being enthusiastic about taxing the fuck out of rich people (including myself), draining money out of police departments, and forcing accountability to the communities they serve upon police departments. If I'm not on the record, that is where I stand.

Where I also stand is that I believe that unless these changes have both race and class concerns at the center of their implementations, they will help mainstream White people and those deemed acceptable by mainstream White people and fuck over everyone else. I still probably would come out ahead in that scenario. It would still be wrong.

DJP I’m serious but I don’t represent everyone. or anyone else. obviously

I know “death to america” is marginal enough within most of the USA to be dismissed as unserious but it’s actually quite a popular position elsewhere

I didn't say you were unserious. YOU said you were unserious by responding with "I'm just one person". You are the one underselling and undercutting your own positions and words; I'm taking what you're giving me.

personally think that any form of radicalism that points to incarceration as a legitimate form of retribution is misguided

xp thanks for that clarification, completely agree

iirc

There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?

What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

good quote shame he couldn’t apply the same wisdom to the genocide he supported in his time

DJP you made a good critique of bernie style social democracy above, doesn’t this say something about what the US fundamentally is or can be while remaining the US

This is why I don't trust revolutionaries; not because their end goals are things I disagree with but their methods will be used and warped to hurt me, my friends, and my family.

This is why the next American revolution (if any) has GOT to be nonviolent.

The problem is people. The problem will always be people. Every system you can think of will be bent to hurting the less-fortunate. That is the way humanity is.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Thursday, August 20, 2020 10:34 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm not well versed in this stuff, but has there ever been a truly egalitarian society that worked (like no elites) beyond the village level?*

in place of incarceration or death, everlasting shame and humiliation would be a great, and effective, substitute.

both tools recently proven to be utterly ineffective

i didn’t say it would be easy!

Shame finally died on January 2017.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BlackandwhiteWeirdCock-size_restricted.gif

Come back, shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUdtjkqUHFE

we can have a peaceful revolution whenever carey mulligan wraps up her take on "new york, new york"

This is why the next American revolution (if any) has GOT to be nonviolent.

I believe we are on the same page here but it bears explicit statement: “nonviolent” does not mean “absent of violence”. It means violence is not a tactic you use. You invite violence upon yourself in order to turn public opinion against the perpetrators of said violence.

(Otherwise, you are advocating for people to vote. This is important and necessary but it’s not a “revolution”.)

I believe we are on the same page here but it bears explicit statement: “nonviolent” does not mean “absent of violence”. It means violence is not a tactic you use. You invite violence upon yourself in order to turn public opinion against the perpetrators of said violence.

― shout-out to his family (DJP)

to build on this, non-violence is not something that just happens on an individual level. it requires organization, discipline, and leadership. the left doesn't have any of those things right now. i would be extremely glad to listen to and learn from the expertise and wisdom of the leaders of the democratic party, have been for the past four years, but none has been forthcoming. nothing but circling the wagons, keeping us out. i don't know why, but i suspect it has something to do with their wanting to get paid. so instead of listening to ted wheeler, i listen to jo ann hardesty.

to me, what inspires me is something like the hawaiian revolution. that's what i'd like to see, if not nationwide, than at least implemented in more states than just hawaii. and what was pivotal to me was that the elites of the hawaiian democratic party made sacrifices to support radicals whose ideals they didn't always agree with.

the left doesn’t have organization, discipline and leadership? there are a couple of groundbreaking protest movements i know of that might want to take issue with that statement

it has some of those things but it needs a fuckton more

not to mention material support

With such an ideologically fractured populace with different things at stake it seems inevitable that any "revolution" in America would have to include both violent and non-violent tactics, with those in the non-violent camp more able to extract concessions by casting themselves as the better alternative to larger scale violence. I also would agree more with those arguing to change the system from within if escalating climate catastrophe weren't looming so large over us in the near term. To me it feels like we're running out of time to build the just society that's required to implement the kind of climate mitigation efforts we'll need to avoid the worst kind of dystopic mass suffering imaginable. We don't have time to work within a deeply flawed system that's only going to get more authoritarian as resources get squeezed. I'm a big wuss so it definitely won't be me to start a violent revolution but I'm having a hard time seeing how we make it without one.

the left doesn’t have organization, discipline and leadership? there are a couple of groundbreaking protest movements i know of that might want to take issue with that statement

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand)

ok, let me rephrase. the left badly needs _more_ organization, discipline, and leadership, to build on what it has.

TBH the only good outcome of the pandemic is forcing everyone to travel less

Like, does MPLS BLM get anywhere near the concessions they've gotten if a mob hadn't burned down that police station?

Probably not, but it’s also worth noting that the agenda item was already on the Minneapolis city council radar and the unrest pushed the priority. As you said, violent and nonviolent go hand in hand.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/9/18/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-15660-1502316837-6.jpg

honestly, what worries me a lot is calls from the center to denounce violence. i _really_ do not want violence, but i also recognize the really negative effects calling for denunciations has. it not just makes the non-violent left collectively responsible, but individuals personally responsible. it's, particularly, this thing that i see a _lot_ in white liberals where they want to assert control over the acceptable boundaries of debate.

and it _is_ a framing thing. we all accept the historical narrative that the participants in the birmingham campaign were non-violent. however, some participants in that campaign did commit violent acts. they were met with overwhelming force on the part of the civil authorities, but more importantly, people didn't _talk_ about them. the conversation wasn't _centered_ around them. nobody said "dr. king, how can you say your movement is non-violent, here is a black man on the streets violently attacking the police?" everybody looked at bull connor and his police and his fire-hoses.

the center these days, it seems to me, are giving a lot more intense scrutiny to the scattered violent radicals.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/9523bbf18c4a3b1819eab121f8e02539/tumblr_nnpq4jq5xd1rr5t33o1_540.jpg

is what i get for using the word "everybody"

i'm talking more, like, cronkite

centrists today seem to have a lot more in common with the birmingham news editorial cartoonist

Beautiful Palmer method handwriting, though!

oh there will be violence

it just can't be initiated by the seekers of change

It's arguably already been initiated by those in power a billion times over.

certainly

the great mass of Americans havent gotten that til now, Many still don't.

We've had 90 days running of peaceful protestors rioted against by cops, and about a dozen instances of protestors breaking windows and burning one police station in that time.

the center these days, it seems to me, are giving a lot more intense scrutiny to the scattered violent radicals.

It was striking to me that the DNC has not been shying away from the protests at all, but rather has leaned into them and asserted that the Democratic Party is the party that backs justice for George Floyd and deplores the suppression of peaceful protests by militarized cops. Not one mention of violence, window-breaking, etc. Biden said "no place for violence in the movement" back at the beginning of June; so were Black community leaders in my city. But he and the Dem party generally seem pretty clearly to have appropriately resisted the idea that every single statement of organized community protest has to be paired with "to be sure don't bust up immigrants' downtown stores."

it is conversations like today’s that make me despair that ilx lacks any interesting posters under 30