One loud fartpillow?
Don’t have Biden run for reelection. Pick any other half decent human and they should win.
Too late for that
RIP and good riddance then
Convention hasn’t happened yet. It literally isn’t too late for that.
The problem is that the act of swapping candidates will seem to entirely clueless that whoever steps up to the plate is bound to lose.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. No one will spoil their chances for 2028 by being a late entry now. The democratic party is hunkering down for 4 more years of Trump is suspect.
They are not bound to lose.
That is a statement that is being pushed, along with the whole Biden “Over prepared” thing as a talking point to push why we have to stick with a dementia-addled genocidal asshole.
It’s simply not a true statement. You’re stating an opinion as fact, and it’s misleading as shit.
The second someone else gets picked is the second that they (Whoever they are) have name recognition and people will consider that person.
I hope you’re right. I want you to be right. And I agree at this point the Democratic Party ought to try - damn, they’re losing anyway so they might as well try.
My worry is that an alternative candidate that is worth their salt AND want to run against Trump can’t be found. I hope I’m wrong.
The only clean way to do it is for Biden to step down put Kamala in by default and let anyone who wants to run in 2028 fight for the new VP spot. Most voters thought this was the plan anyways in 2020. That said Biden’s not going to step down so they aren’t doing shit.
The convention hasn’t even happened yet? 🤔
The American way. See a problem, wait until it’s too late to fix said problem, point fingers at a scapegoat for why the problem wasn’t solved earlier, and repeat.
Call your democratic politicians (if you have any) Governor/Senators/House Rep and advocate for pressure for Biden to step down gracefully from the ticket… then prepare to vote for Biden in November because that’s a hell of a longshot.
If you’re talking to people on the fence about voting or not focus more on Biden’s policy achievements instead of Trump being a boogie man. Anyone liberal who is considering sitting out this election has already internally decided that Trump is an acceptable outcome for trying to change the two party system or to avoid dirtying their hands voting for Biden to continue genocide - pushing against people’s fervently held beliefs is a waste of energy… the media really hasn’t put much attention on things that Biden has accomplished so talking those things up won’t make people defensive - you never want to directly challenge someone’s fervently held beliefs because it is extremely difficult to shift those.
or to avoid dirtying their hands voting for Biden to continue genocide
So genocide isn’t a deal-breaker for you. Tells me a lot.
Genocide or more genocide? Difficult choice…
It’s not a choice at all. Voting makes you complicit.
All I’m saying is capital-H History will know who collaborated by whose names are on the ballots. And goddess willing, if I get to survive this? I will sell y’all asses out to the historians if I’m asked.
“Yessir, those anglos were perfectly fine with letting their personally-armed and trained proxy force massacre as many brown foreigners as possible if it meant they got to keep their comfort”; I’m already practicing my Yeonmi Park routine. And I won’t even have to lie; imagine that.
I’m reading this and having flashbacks to me campaigning for Hillary in 2016 and agreeing with people on doorsteps: yeah she’s not great but she’s much better than the alternative.
Don’t have a genocidal sundowning segregationist nominated without a rank-and-file voting process with multiple candidates. Or accept that you are not really in charge of any of this when it comes to The Democratic Party and therefore you should place your political focus on ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.
ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.
How would one go about it? Would be useful if it’s in a general context, as I’m not a North American.
As has consistently been the case for people in our position, our power comes from our ability to organize and take collective action and to develop the question you asked even further and for the conditions in our own countries. This in contrast to what our rulers tell us gives us power (in reality, they give us instructions on how to maintain their power), which is usually some kind of institutional cooption, like joining an NGO or nagging people to vote for their oppressors or doing some slight participation in a milquetoast political party.
Increasing our organization and choosing good actions to take is not an easy process, though it is often surprisingly simple to describe. To be more organized we have to meet with one another, we must gain the skills to convince others to join up with us, to compile the information needed to contact interested parties, to strategically work in coalition with other organizations, to train each other regularly in the core tasks or running any organization. To choose the right actions to take, we must read political theory and history, teach this to each other, and understand how it applies (or does not) to our current situations. The political theory that is the most useful is that which is usually not taught, not even to criticize, but is glossed over or told stories about - it’s the political theory of the left and a fearless critical reading of history.
Because our institutions educationally neglect us so severely, particularly when it comes to the tools for our own liberation, it can take a while before you might feel like you are confident or ready to go. That is okay and normal. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time to read or to simply try things out a little first.
So I would recommend two things.
The first is to begin reading the political theory of the left and history. There may already be great authors and movements where you live, or there may have been some in the past. They can help you get an idea for who our enemy is (the ruling class) and what different movements have attempted (successfully and not) in the past. Try just one book at first. I often recommend that people start with Blackshirts & Reds by Michael Parenti, as it is a good primer in what we all need to unlearn, or at least take a skeptical lens to, when it comes to the mass media telling of history and politics vs. what actually happened. The value of reading is that it will help you and everyone you talk to choose good actions to take collectively. Those who do not understand the nature of the system we must fight will choose the wrong actions and may even hurt our interests. So education is not just a good thing in itself, it is a tool of political organization.
The second is to get involved with an organization that does mass left politics. There are certain kinds of organizations I would recommend avoiding and I’ll explain more if you ask about it. But most organizations that take a proper ground-up approach and are not an NGO will probably be a useful experience for you and your ability to politically organize. It will likely be useful even if you eventually leave that group for another!
Thank you.
read political theory and history
Which books other than the one that you mentioned(thanks for that), would you recommend? Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
I’ve been recommended State & rev and I have read it, but it seems that eventhough I get the idea, I don’t have the foundation and context(didn’t understand who all the people mentioned in it are) to fully understand it. Maybe I need to reread it.Are there any books that you’d recommend about organising and the associated skills/strategy needed for it?
Could I ask a related question:
In my place I’m seeing communal polarisation increasing. Or it is becoming more evident. How would one oppose that in a populace where religion and caste hold good sway, without the opposition giving it more power accidently?
I’ve seen leftist n leftish organisations being affected by this.Which books…would you recommend?
@[email protected] put together a good reading list that includes the reading order.
Thank you.
Is the list ordered by importance or is it the recommended reading order?Mostly in the recommended reading order, but he listed some notes on their importance or when they can be skipped, etc. with many of the sources, particularly at the start of the list.
This should take you up through where you were at State and Revolution and where to go next. I have to say that the recommendation others have given for Black Shirts and Reds is also a very good place to start for the reasons they gave.
Almost all of these can be found on the internet archive, Anna’s Archive, or you can ask around on lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml for free digital copies. While some people prefer physical books, there shouldn’t be any need to pay for these unless you want to.
Thank you.
Thank you for being interested and wanting to learn more! We can only liberate ourselves with more people like yourself.
Which books other than the one that you mentioned(thanks for that), would you recommend? Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
There are too many options, is the main challenge. I would usually want to suggest something that builds on your interests or addresses some topic you’re really interested in, in particular.
I think one good angle to begin with is media criticism. It builds a very useful ongoing skill and also teaches many important facts and lessons about who controls us and how. It’s simultaneously fascinating, upsetting, horrific, and banal. Blackshirts & Reds touches on it. Parenti also wrote Inventing Reality, which in my opinion is a book that is similar to but slightly better than Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky (which I also recommend). There is also FAIR.org, a website which focuses almost exclusively on media criticism, and the podcast Citations Needed that has a number of episodes dedicated to media criticism and current events.
There are two modern texts by the same author that I think are also very useful, though they are also (recent) historical critiques. I would recommend them if you are interested in some valuable but possibly upsetting historical explorations of what does not work, but is close to working. The books are The Jakarta Method and If We Burn by Vincent Bevins. The first will give a strong sense for just how far our oppressors will go and what we must think about if we want to win. The second is about challenges to organize, mostly but not always in rich Western countries.
Critiquing geopolitics can also be useful. There are too many books that come to mind on this topic. A perennial favorite is Michael Hudson’s Super imperialism, which gives a nice argument for the coercive power of the US dollar and global debt structures. This is a useful topic to get a handle on because it’s the very first and best tool chosen to crush any fights for the common person. Not even radical fights. Just simple things like winning an election and then nationalizing an industry so that you can feed your people rather than let foreign companies of your former colonizers extract and own all your stuff. Any fight to improve conditions in a country that has been targeted for extraction will have to fight these same groups and their complex of actors, including financial instruments, NGOs, propaganda blitzes, etc.
If you prefer to build from foundations there is really no substitute for reading seminal theories, though they won’t be modern. Unfortunately, we are fighting the same fundamental system that people were fighting 150 years ago, though we are now the beneficiaries of seeing those experiments and learning from them. As foundational works I would recommend reading Marx and reading Emma Goldman, which will help lay foundations for understanding critiques of capitalism from both a Marxist and anarchist perspective. Marx’s main work, Capital, is very difficult to read due to the way in which he methodologically laid out concepts, so I usually recommend that people read Heinrich’s summary and then Michael Roberts’ commentaries. Those two disagree with each other about a few things so you’ll get a nice balance. For Goldman I recommend reading Anarchism and Other Essays. Once you have a foundation in Marxism I recommend reading Lenin, as his theoretical and organizational developments were key to the very first sustained anti-capitalist revolution on the planet. In addition, his theories on imperialism are incredibly relevant even today, as imperialism remains the primary tool of our oppressors.
I’ve been recommended State & rev and I have read it, but it seems that eventhough I get the idea, I don’t have the foundation and context(didn’t understand who all the people mentioned in it are) to fully understand it. Maybe I need to reread it.
That book will be very hard to understand without having some contextual knowledge of Marxism and of some of the arguments that lefties were having at the time. It’s a theoretical work by Lenin where he lays out his conception of how socialists should treat the state (before, during, and after a hypothetical revolution) as well as how to specifically position a national anti-capitalist movement against cooption into reformism via liberal democratic institutions, particularly in the context of Tsarist Russia (while commenting on Germany as well, where most people that weren’t like-minded with Lenin thought revolution would first occur). It’s a very interesting book with many great quotes and theses but I would not start with it if the references aren’t making a lot of sense.
Are there any books that you’d recommend about organising and the associated skills/strategy needed for it?
For the skills I personally don’t think there are any particularly good books about it that are both modern and in English (there may be non-English books that are good but I haven’t read!). The core skills are best acquired through practice and in finding opportunities to learn from experienced organizers. They will have books that they like, but imo it’s a good idea to be skeptical of them. This is because most books on organizing are by people who are not particularly successful or who have succeeded in contexts that are actually fairly different from our own most of the time. For example, there are many skills in union organizing that are valuable for left organizing in general (many of them came from lefties in the first place). Those are great to learn. But if you go to the books about union organizing they tend to be pretty crap, in my experience, as they teach a formulaic approach and the authors are often just… not actually very good at it. Or they teach an approach that works great for organizing a factory when anti-capitalist sentiment is already high and it’s the 1920s. When you go to apply their approaches to lefty organizing you’ll end up in jail or something.
Anyways I recommend learning this from an organization. Find one that takes the skills of organizing seriously and has strategy and planning meetings rather than debate clubs. They will be the ones to learn in.
Introductory ones that are modern/contemporary, if possible.
Michael Parenti, “Blackshirts and Reds”. J. Sakai, “Settlers”. Too Black and Rasul A. Mowatt, “Laundering Black Rage”.
Thank you
In my place I’m seeing communal polarisation increasing. Or it is becoming more evident. How would one oppose that in a populace where religion and caste hold good sway, without the opposition giving it more power accidently?
That is a very difficult question to answer! You may already know better than I do, being embedded in your local context. But I can suggest some things to consider.
The first is that religion is not a simple good or bad thing when it comes to organizing. It is another consciousness that can compete with or work with a liberation project. It will depend on its structure, how it exerts powers and who it antagonizes vs. helps. There are two big negative forms of political religiosity that are dangerous to liberation. The first is the obvious reactionary conflation of religion with tradition and factionalization, where it is used as a way to create a societal rift and oppression on the basis of religion. This is largely a distraction from the material basis of oppression, but is it very effective and harmful. The second is when religion is used to “check out” of struggle. For example, I know a local religious leader that tells people that it’s okay that so many children are killed by Israelis in Palestine because they are martyred in heaven, the only thing that really matters. While this soothes some of the pain, it can also lead to a form of material apathy and turning away from action. With that said, there are also things like liberation theology and working with religious groups towards liberatory ends. It’s something that has to be navigated on a case-by-case basis. It is not wrong to, for example, adopt the position that X group is copptonf Y religion and that this should be rejected, even if you do not personally subscribe to religion Y in the first place. You will be more powerful if you (as in, any organization you may be in) find a group that focuses on religion Y from an angle that is compatible with yours and for you to keep each other safe and strong.
Regarding caste, does this mean you are in South Asia or otherwise interacting with th concept of caste as derived from it? This is also a very challenging thing to consider and there are very good points to be made for addressing caste first vs. class first and how they overlap and are different. If you are in India, I would focus on how you might oppose Hindutva from an angle that is caste-critical and whether there are people in your area that are interested in opposing both. People who have been assigned a lower caste will be more likely to see the injustice and be able to act in their own favor and build momentum, though you can also find and make good use of “caste traitors”.
Anyways your question is really about communal polarization. This is not something you can simply prevent as its own quantity. What you can do is build towards the better factions within that community and push your own projects. Our enemies create this polarization, they create and maintain fascists and the false consciousnesses that divide us against ourselves. We can’t create unity that centers those false consciousness, is what I’ll suggest. Class consciousness is at least a correct consciousness that opposes this division and if you include the additional valid liberation struggles you’ll be able to build from firm ground.
I should say that this is not the kind of thing anyone can do alone. All of this would only be realistic to discuss as part of an organization to which you would be contributing your efforts and knowledge. So my real advice is to see if you can identify an anti-capitalist group in your community that seems at least 70% good and see if you can join it. And please do so as safely and securely as possible (in-person communication is best, do not use Whatsapp or Facebook etc).
I’ve seen leftist n leftish organisations being affected by this.
Lefty orgs are basically always in some form of drama or crisis, so this isn’t necessarily an odd thing, haha. I can’t give a useful opinion without knowing more about how they’ve been affected, though.
To add to the extensive information you’ve already been given, I would highly recommend the Anarchist FAQ, which is all good, but specifically section J breaks down the “what can we do about it” part.
The anarchist Library in general is a fantastic resource, another good place to start might be David Graeber’s Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! or Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid.
Happy exploring!
This is the only correct answer. The settler empire cannot and will never do right, neither by the subjects-of-empire they still subject to fascism, to tenement housing because anglo realty companies bought up everything else to stranglehold rent prices, to carceral slavery in moldering prisons with food that’d give you COVID before it nourished you, to murder in our beds at the hands of SWAT teams; nor by the rest of the world that they routinely violate, pillage, and commit genocide upon. Death to the empire, worse to those who bear its water.
“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” – John Brown, December 2, 1859
Fairly successful strategy I’ve been using lately is to out-crazy the red team and feed em their own medicine. No one here needs to be told the libertarian party is just Far Right Lite™, but do you know their selling points? Cuz there is no chance in HELL I’ll be able to convince a Trumpanzee to vote for Biden, but I have been able to steer a handful of votes away from Trump and toward Chase Oliver - usually goes down like this: MAGAt will open the conversation by bitching about someone on the blue team - such as Hillary and her emails. I’ll AGREE with them, but lump her and Trump into the same category… “Idk how they get away with sending classified data on a private email server or printing it out and hauling boxes of it to their private residence. If I did hundredth of the crime Trump or Hillary committed, I’d spend the rest of my life in jail!”. Bitch about how both parties are doing the bare minimum just to stay in power etc; then start pitching 3rd as an alternative option.
‘Both sides’ em, and change their vote to “not trump” by pitching whichever 3rd most closely aligns with their impressionability (which is pretty much always the LP). Put the spoiler effect to good use.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit or encouraging apathy because of the shit debate.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit or encouraging apathy because of the shit debate.
I’m already quite weary of that!
(“Weary” means tired; you probably meant “wary” which means cautious)
Poor you. You think Biden’s victims are weary? He’s killed up to one hundred thousand innocent people in agonising ways, and you’re weary of him being described as what he is.
Shame on you.
So, Trump is better? Yeah, we know he sucks. We also know Trump is far, far worse. But you know this, don’t you?
What is your plan, exactly? By not voting Biden, you help Trump, and he WILL directly cause far more death and suffering.
I’m weary and wary of all this.
Don’t worry.
Came in to say this lol. Previous poster is right on my intent and correction, but god damn am I tired of this Nazi shit.
What else do you call someone complicit in the genocide of a sovereign nation for the sole purpose of furthering a blatantly-supremacist regime? Other than Amerikan, I mean?
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit
You’ve seen the broken, burnt, limbless and decapitated bodies of twenty-thousand plus dead children, live-tweeted into your living room for nine months and it isn’t enough for you to stop supporting the man principally responsible for it.
You’re not “defeating fascism”, you are a fascist.
Yep, I’ve seen them, and out of the 2 candidates chosen by those in power, one certainly does better than the other in regards to Gaza. Biden is a shit candidate, and I hate him, but at least I’m not a Russian rent boy.
at least I’m not a Russian rent boy.
You think this is worse than being a genocidal fascist. Says everything.
Genocide-collaborator liberals and unaddressed homophobia, name a more iconic combo
Backing genocide isn’t better.
There is no harm-reduction past a certain point, there is just throwing vulnerable people under the bus to save yourself.
I honestly have no idea what the logic is supposed to be here?
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!? It makes absolutely no sense.
We can talk in 2028 when we actually have a say again in who is running, but as it stands now we’re stuck with who is up there now.
No, we’re not.
The convention hasn’t happened yet.
Finally, the logic is simple. Biden is a genocidal fascist. If you’re afraid that we will live in a fascist state if Trump is elected, then my answer is we already do.
If Trump is elected and goes full fascist, what do you plan on doing? Whatever it is, you should already be doing it.
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!? It makes absolutely no sense.
Resisting fascism and genocide isn’t about virtue. It’s about survival. You’ve been conned into believing that if you just vote for the lesser genocidal fascist, then you or whatever oppressed group you identify with will be fine. You will not.
This well known poem
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for meis about you.
Are we supposed to be so virtuous that we allow Republicans to kill all of us just so we die with the Palestinians that no matter who we elect will die!?
Translation: “I’ve already acquiesced to the idea that one way or the other, the flag I eagerly uplift is going to literally inflict genocide upon a sovereign nation for natural gas resources and the allowance of an illegitimate, blatantly-supremacist nationstate to build itself atop those sovereign bodies the exact same way Amerika did to the natives, and I see nothing wrong with that so long as my comfort is preserved”
You and everyone like you fucking disgust me. Death to the settler empire, worse to those who uplift it.
Oh fuck off. I have no real options here. I vote against the establishment asshole every primary I get.
So you recognise that the system is the problem. You even think there’s a gun to your head forcing you to participate. You don’t need to take part in it. Taking part of choosing complicity.
Do you organize with an actual party with revolutionary (not reformist) politics? Have you ever cut a check for a political prisoner’s bond, bail, or commissary? Perform any kind of community mutual aid? If not, this “oh fuck off” is petulance as impotent as the only thing you claim you do, and deeply unserious as far as any real response could be considered.
Offer rides to those that can’t get to voting booths on their own. Keep spreading the word to vote. If everyone votes, there would be no republikkklowns in office and we can progress as a country instead of regress.
[redacted]
Maybe only Trump himself?
you know there was an amendment that was created for dealing with unelected tyrants. uhhhhh one? three? hmmm, I can’t seem to remember…
Biden bombs wherever his campaign is located for suspected nuclear IEDs. In 25 years when congress is still investigating he’ll be dead too so the SC ruling that it wasn’t an “official act” will be moot as they can throw the bones in a jail cell for however long they want.
Money. Donate. There isn’t a near term world where money won’t matter in giving you a voice, so you should use it.
Pretty sure the us parties have far too much money.
Long shot here: Donate to charities which help people in need in predominantly Trump held districts.
Less of a long shot: Volunteer for organizations like Vote Forward to try to reach folks. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, and appealing to people can’t hurt.
I’m very curious how giving money to Trump supporters would hurt Trump? Some people are giving their last dollar to Trump and depend in charity at this point. Wouldn’t throwing money at local charities just further enable them?
Playing by the rules is all we can do. It’s a democracy. Whoever wins wins.
is it? Bush v. Gore? Trump v Georgia?
Roughly speaking. Supposing we see ourselves as a democracy, it comes off as weird anyone would “plot” a candidate’s loss. In such a system, the only thing we can do is gain popular opinion. Unless we’re implying we don’t actually see things that way.
it sounds like you are unaware of the events I am referring to.
Which ones?
I hear the French had good luck with guillotines.
I could make a few effective suggestions, but I don’t want to end up on a list. My life sucks enough without getting in trouble for a joke.
