Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

https://i.postimg.cc/RZ04LcTR/IMG-7468.jpg

How do you all find the time to figure out who these weirdos are? Seems exhausting.

throw that hot dog down the hallway of justice

somehow knew DJP was gonna score that obvious goal, lol...i thought about it

the writers that are good thread reminded me that a writer has to at least be a little gay to be good. not that the gays aren't incapable of producing ridiculous garbage but there's just a natural advantage in knowing that the world as it's presented to you isn't necessarily the truth

I put 'mad psychedelic party in 2006' into one of those ai picture generators and it gave me this, which doesn't look very 2006, more like a bad 90s alt-something album cover

https://api.deepai.org/job-view-file/4dd221cb-5095-4e99-9fa6-eae256d4d512/outputs/output.jpg

https://api.deepai.org/job-view-file/4dd221cb-5095-4e99-9fa6-eae256d4d512/outputs/output.jpg

The thing is, I'm never sure how to receive your political opinions/judgments, because they omit so much context (taken here to mean "the reality of life on Earth") that they're really nothing but "assume a can opener" rhetorical jacking-off. The position you stake out in virtually every political discussion here, no matter the specific circumstance you're commenting on, is never, ever going to happen, and I'm sure you know that. Which makes me wonder how you can get so frothy-mouthed about condemning anyone attempting to propose strategies that lie within the boundaries of "things that might actually happen in the society we currently inhabit." Like, where do you think the whole "join me in my dream world or you're a fascist!" thing gets anyone, you included?

sorry bro

love how self-congratulatory cynicism and insulting people who believe in change can so easily stand in for a political position for some on this board

unperson is like an exasperated parent, telling the kid to turn that loud noise off lol

Tbf, the noise can get pretty loud

But also table otm, and the cynicical view that "change ain't gonna happen so it's no use fighting for it" is exactly the view that enables the, often terrible, status quo. And it should be challenged

the cynical view that "change ain't gonna happen so it's no use fighting for it"

Change — positive change, even — happens all the time. Just today, the Biden administration announced a new rule which states that doctors cannot give patients' medical records to law enforcement in other states. So if someone from Texas travels to Colorado for an abortion, doctors in Colorado will not be permitted to give Texas law enforcement that patient's medical records.

But the kind of "change" advocated around here is too often along the lines of "if we can get everyone to give up capitalism, heteronormativity, and monotheistic religion, everything will be great! and anything short of that is a worthless capitulation to the forces of evil!" Which serves nothing and no one.

OTM

xp well, your example of positive change exists in the context of a massive rollback of rights occurring under a Democratic administration, sure, it's something, but I don't blame people for wanting more.

I dunno unperson, that sounds like some broad brushwork that doesn’t take into consideration and sincerity and specificity of said posters. If you want to reduce it all down to “kill capitalism, heteronormativity, monotheism”, that’s your choice. But I more often see actual helpful critique and analysis of specific events. YMMV

i don't know where this thread comes from... i don't usually do the politics threads... but since it's here, and because i'm feeling particularly helpless and hopeless this week, i'll go ahead and engage

xp well, your example of positive change exists in the context of a massive rollback of rights occurring under a Democratic administration, sure, it's something, but I don't blame people for wanting more.

― JoeStork

for me it's first and foremost a question of _trust_ - "do i trust these people to speak for me, to act on my behalf?" for me, since 2016, that answer has been fundamentally "no". there are a couple of reasons here:

1. perceived/demonstrated lack of efficacy. the one thing which broke my faith in democracy, in the democratic party, more than anything else was clinton's failure to _beat trump_. i think your point also goes to this, joe - for decades one of the democrats' key priorities has been to protect roe v. wade, and they failed to do that. democrats i suppose will argue that they did everything they reasonably could. i disagree. in light of that, making a temporary administrative change which can and will be rolled back immediately the second any republican gets into office... i won't say it's _worthless_, but of significantly lesser value to me than, say, roe v. wade being the law of the united states was.

one of my big beefs with the democrats is that they continually let their adversaries shift the goalposts. republicans break _the rules_, get away with it, and then those are the "rules" which the democrats then try to play by. i had in me a very strong streak of realpolitik - i was willing to excuse a great deal in the name of _winning_. democrats' chief priority to me seems to be to minimize threats to their internal institutional power structure. anybody can be a democrat - as long as they're ok with doing things the DNC's way.

in other words, my subjective perception is that the DNC is able to enforce power and control within the confines of the democratic party, but not outside of those confines. this is not a recipe for a strategically robust organization, imo.

-

But the kind of "change" advocated around here is too often along the lines of "if we can get everyone to give up capitalism, heteronormativity, and monotheistic religion, everything will be great! and anything short of that is a worthless capitulation to the forces of evil!" Which serves nothing and no one.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

i mean i'm gonna be honest my denunciation of capitalism, cisheteronormativity, and repressive patriarchal religion is to a large part born out of frustration. i can't say that the biden administration _hasn't_ done anything for me. i have had for years had the chance to fill out paperwork to update the gender on my social security card. i mean it's nice but the idea of bureaucratic paperwork fills me with dread. i haven't done it. there's this huge rush among people i know - if you need to do something, get it done before november. get your surgeries done, your paperwork updated, your passports in order, because after november, you might not have the chance. i just don't have my shit together enough. i don't know where my passport is. one more of a million things on my backlog. and i guess if i don't do it, i might wind up dying because of that. that should motivate me. it doesn't.

ideas, words... they're easy when one has no real power, no real choice in one's own life. yelling about capitalism is, well. i don't know how else to describe it. people around me are suffering and hurt, and none of us have enough, and none of us are truly able to help each other effectively. we need more. more money, more of a social safety net, more opportunities, more access to disability, more _respect_. and, simultaneously, we need less. fewer people calling us "faggots" on the streets. fewer people misgendering us. we need people to have less _access_ to hateful, bigoted lies about us, we need there to be less _acceptance_ of these things.

well, that all sounds very selfish and entitled, and it is, because, i mean, we're not the only ones suffering. i talk about what trans people need and of course we're not the only marginalized group, probably not even the _most_ marginalized group. so many people are suffering in the same way and the only way i can think to talk about it is by abstraction, is by looking at the common forces of oppression. capitalism. cisheteronormativity. patriarchy. i'm not saying these things as _immediate calls to action_. i'm not saying these things to negate or disregard the very real personal, daily conflicts that affect even people who are strongly politically aligned.

if we can't agree on everything, if we can't always work together, i just... i'd like to believe that we can agree on _something_, something _meaningful_. that we can have a common cause. a better common cause than whatever watered-down intellectually and emotionally bankrupt mishmash the DNC leadership is offering.

if we can't agree on everything, if we can't always work together, i just... i'd like to believe that we can agree on _something_, something _meaningful_. that we can have a common cause.

There are always meaningful points of agreement. They can be as small as, "So-and-so needs help paying the rent. Can you kick in?" or "We need a better library. Vote Yes on the ballot initiative, please." This is why I wish the empty-headed fucks who launch ego-driven "presidential campaigns" would run for city council instead. Do some actual goddamn work to make people's lives materially better, instead of preening on Twitter and/or cable news. And this is why I have no time for talk of sweeping change. It's not coming. But small change absolutely is. There's work to be done every day. If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean. Hell, I (in my guise as Burning Ambulance) am a member of the Chamber of Commerce! And a member of my local electrical co-op. I have a voice in local issues! I get emails about public hearings about stuff like replacing the bridge that the Montana DOT decided is no longer safe for pedestrian or vehicle traffic. Now we gotta figure out what we're gonna do about that, and where the money's gonna come from. That shit is important — way more important than railing against capitalism on the internet.

Lots of ppl preening on twitter are actually doing the work, they just have a longer term view of what it's for.

And bigger change is absolutely coming via climate change, and in many of our lifetimes. Lol @ "voting for a library". You are praying that's all you'll have to do.

I don't think we should tell anyone what to believe or how to approach the world, on the other hand people should know better than to weaponize their positions as if they were final and fit for all purposes. Unperson is right that long-term is meaningless if there is no short-term path to it, and that you have to work with what you have, no matter how sad/frustrating/humbling that is - more than grand declarations or ideology, that's the essence of politics.

Also we're all commenters here, if there's a politician here I haven't heard. We don't even live in the same countries. So we don't have to defend our little persona / "line" and we can be a little more chill.

"more than grand declarations or ideology, that's the essence of politics"

Sorry to break it to you but there is a declaration of ideology there from unperson.

I hate it when he's otm

Helping to stop the world from burning up + running an electrical co-op are not mutually exclusive idk

unperson, as I have said on this board numerous times, I volunteer for several mutual aid orgs and contribute bits of what little money i have to orgs, too. your characterization of me is utter bullshit.

believe it or not, making grand pronouncements and holding ideological firmness can be completely in line with doing on the ground, “small potatoes “ work. i do the latter because i want the change exhibited in my ideological positions to come to pass.

for example, i work with Food Not Bombs every two weeks and also deliver meals once a month for another organization. this is not glamorous work, but it is about helping my neighbors and others who are housebound get what they need in terms of nutrition and sustenance. this shouldn’t be an issue in the richest country on earth, and yet it is. the small acts of kindness and compassion lead me to the larger issues of food apartheid and inequality, which are systemic issues that need to change.

THIS is the way my world works, and if you don’t care for how i express my views about it, then fucking killfile me already, or fuck off with these attacks.

_I have a voice in local issues! I get emails about public hearings about stuff like replacing the bridge that the Montana DOT decided is no longer safe for pedestrian or vehicle traffic. Now we gotta figure out what we're gonna do about that, and where the money's gonna come from. That shit is important — way more important than railing against capitalism on the internet.

In my experience of organising, mutual aid and such I would say there's def a big overlap between ppl doing important short term local work and ppl who talk a lot about abolishing capitalism, the patriarchy and etc. Not all of them by any means but it's certainly a common combo.

No doubt people who talk a lot about abolishing capitalism and do absolutely nothing also exist, but to jump to the conclusion that someone on ILX talking about these things must belong to that group falls under the old Making Up A Guy To Get Mad At routine.

The reason you'll hear more about systemic change than short term local action on ILX I think would be obvious - this is a discussion forum and as such ideally suited to abstract discussions.

Also I recently read this older issue of n+1 that had an interesting essay about leftism and affect theory and hopelessness… by Gabriel Winant… it is relevant to this discussion idk if anyone else read it

Good points by Daniel

Granted in the space of organizing and community work, there are people who do more talking than working and focus on meetings and make the perfect the enemy of the good … but for the most part, Daniel otm ime

I like Winant, but I've not read that essay. Will look later thanks Sarah

I feel good knowing you like them, xyzzz! No sarcasm

V1nce Crudele

No, he seems to be over in Helena, which is about 350 miles from me.

No doubt people who talk a lot about abolishing capitalism and do absolutely nothing also exist

Er, hello! To be fair, I don't very often talk about abolishing capitalism, I do do absolutely nothing though.

he said doodoo

_ V1nce Crudele_

No, he seems to be over in Helena, which is about 350 miles from me.

There are always meaningful points of agreement. They can be as small as, "So-and-so needs help paying the rent. Can you kick in?"

what happens when the answer is "no", always "no"? do you know how many of my friends are homeless? do you know how many of my friends are unemployed, possibly unemployable? do you know the joke about "mutual aid" around here? "mutual aid" is passing around the same $20 bill, over and over again. there isn't _enough_, nobody has _enough_ for us to all be, you know, _housed_.

i mean, what you're doing, what you're doing is good. we need libraries. that's where a lot of us go when we need to apply for aid or apply for jobs, and the answer is nearly always "no" but we keep trying. making bridges safe for pedestrian traffic? that's good. that's important.

talking shit on the internet may seem stupid and pointless, but sometimes it's the closest a lot of us get to feeling... i don't know. empowered in our lives. it gets people to _notice_ us. that can be a double edged sword, but for those of us who put "OF in bio" in our usernames... i think it's important to respect the hustle.

we all got our own ways of doing things, all got our own ways of making meaning in this godforsaken world of ours.

There’s probably some people on ilx who could make a salient point about realpolitik & electoralism and their irritation at ilx’s marginalised people having the temerity to express their anger at the constantly degrading situations they live in. The old white guy who makes a living from his “writing” while living in fucking Montana? Do you hear yourself? Evidently not. Probably easier to push the value incrementalism when you’re going to be dead sooner than the rest of us.

An alternative view of record store owners:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vJBBpadaGg

The reason you'll hear more about systemic change than short term local action on ILX I think would be obvious - this is a discussion forum and as such ideally suited to abstract discussions.

― Daniel_Rf[

reposting this because i think it explains a lot and probably isn't as obvious as it seems

(pre-emptively defending - it doesn't explain everything, it doesn't explain every single person and every situation, some people are not abstract at all, some people live in abstraction. but i do think it explains a lot)

yeah it's a good point

Can that icon be a little larger? I only figured it out via process of elimination

There’s probably some people on ilx who could make a salient point about realpolitik & electoralism and their irritation at ilx’s marginalised people having the temerity to express their anger at the constantly degrading situations they live in.

probably not haha but shit maybe i'll try

i mean it's not so much that it's _degrading_, i don't mind the degradation. shit, you know what i realized this week? these terfs always banging on about how my gender identity is a "fetish" and i've gone and developed a fucking terf fetish. i mean i guess turnabout is fair play, motherfuckers been fetishizing me for all my life. pretty fucking awkward though, also a little on the nose - member of an oppressed minority developing a fetish for being degraded by their oppressor. sigh. it's _problematic_, isn't it?

i am still basically a pragmatist, "death to capitalism" is basically a pragmatic position for me to take. i know it doesn't seem that way to someone in unperson's position. i look at that post of his and i smdh, it feels like we live in separate realities.

except we don't, not really. except that it's people like unperson who _can_ meaningly support us. members of marginalized groups _use_ libraries, _walk_ over bridges, benefit from this stuff probably more than most people do. yeah it's frustrating, from that perspective, that i don't show up to city council meetings, that i don't _vote_, that sometimes i behave in ways that are, like, pretty self-destructive. you know, one of us got elected in montana, and they wouldn't let her take her seat, and unperson - yeah, the username does seem ironic to me, a little - he _does_ have a voice, he _can_ be on the chamber of commerce, and what am i supposed to do, say he's _bad_, say he's _fraternizing with the enemy_? he can complain about "death to capitalism" rhetoric and maybe we don't understand each other but we _live in the same reality_. when i talk about common cause... yeah, i do think that me and unperson do have a common cause.

is that salient? i don't know if that's salient.

Probably easier to push the value incrementalism when you’re going to be dead sooner than the rest of us.

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac)

...i'm not terribly sure he's going to be dead before i am, haha. i mean, i'm doing my best. like i said, it's not the degradation... it's how much _shorter_ my expected lifespan is than his.

“No doubt people who talk a lot about abolishing capitalism and do absolutely nothing also exist”

this line of thinking is total bullshit, should they quit their jobs or something?

Protestor, remedy thyself

It’s totally fine to complain about systematic bullshit

people love to complain, but nobody really enjoys listening to it

that's why the Blues never really took off

so I guess that's they call it the blues

I'm happy listening to people complaining about how shit their circumstances are because of hard govt austerity/exploitation poverty wages etc, that can only get more severe under capitalism. Been there, lived it and still am living it, it's comforting to know other people are pissed off and have diagnosed the root of the problem correctly.