FunkyStuff

joined 3 years ago
[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 26 points 3 days ago

What's the huge difference in outcome? Why is voting the only type of action being considered?

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also, where's the part about mysterious funding? I don't think I caught that in the article

Here:

One of the Israeli venture capitalists, Joe Raby, oversaw admission to the Sunshine Bronx business incubator, which also provided Ocasio-Cortez space for a company she founded called Brook Avenue Press. This was a publishing company for children’s books, though it is not clear whether the business ever published a book.

If you google the name of the company there's a ton of articles from right wing rags scrutinizing the shady finances. I'd rather not link them, but I think at the very least the fact that this enterprise which was basically a front company operating under an Israeli venture capital firm is extremely suspect and obviously bears resemblance to something like a CIA front (in this case, probably not the CIA, but the DNC working as if it was the CIA).

And I think you might be missing the point a little bit. Yes, of course she's advocated for positive changes. And it's not like working for Ted Kennedy instantly discredits you (that's probably one of the weaker points raised by the article). The point is to show that she didn't enter politics because she was a community organizer, she entered politics as a ladder climber and a creature of the Democratic Party. She was identified by the party as someone who moved a certain base and represented the right people, but that would fall in line; and she does! she didn't have to defend Joe Biden like that, and she constantly punches left because her role is to represent the farthest left the establishment is comfortable with anyone going: further left than AOC and she turns into a cop and will beat you back in line, using her position and credibility to make everyone else believe only she understands how power works.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago (4 children)

she still said that she would work to stop what was happening in Gaza and specifically didn't want to provide further arms to Israel

The opposite is true.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 14 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I empathize a bit, but it's not like democrats haven't been getting more leftward either.

The furthest left democrat with any sway is Bernie "Israel has a right to defend itself" Sanders.

Most politicians are just not online enough to gather the discourse that we would be experiencing,

I think you don't have to be online to understand several incredibly acute contradictions that are mounting at the moment, between the horrible brutality of genocide in Gaza, concentration camps at the border that have been active since the Obama years in addition to CECOT and Guantanamo, the coming climate collapse, erosion of queer rights, and all manner of civil rights. These phenomena signify a movement of the entire capitalist ruling class, who wield empire in their hands, to the most extreme forms of violence. It's a bipartisan affair. They aren't carefully measuring public opinion, Joe Biden deliberately went out and confidently lied about Palestinians beheading Israeli babies while the IDF massacred the children of Gaza. There is no calculation of how to balance public concerns in that action, they only want to control you and brutalize the weakest among the oppressed people of the world, to consolidate power in uncertain times and weather the storm. If the public rejects the carrot, we get the stick and that's Trump. They want you to be a good little peasant and go back to the carrot while they slaughter the people of the oppressed nations and the most marginalized minorities.

Some do forget over the years, but a lot join politics because they genuinely want to make life better

She's only one woman, but she's probably the most visible example of this myth. AOC is not a "bartender and community organizer turned political leader" she's a Democratic Party plant who operated an LLC that received mysterious funding and became a prominent political figure out of nowhere. Obama has a similar legendary backstory as a "community organizer" but his family on his dad's side has intelligence ties. I don't think every single local politician is part of some crazy conspiracy, though, but you're engaging in some level of magical thinking if you think the Democratic Party can somehow be run by well-meaning local leaders, in a world where the establishment can create an AOC to capture and redirect public sentiment very easily.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago

"Now he is a communist"

What part of that sounds like he's doing nothing? Do you have any clue what communists do? Like, you can go ahead and open What is to be Done and at no point does Lenin say "yes and at this point you wait and do nothing," feel free to investigate the matter and call me out if I'm wrong.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 16 points 3 days ago (4 children)

You need to zoom out. Imagine you're looking back at this moment from 100 years in the future. If people said "the Dems won't make it better but at least they won't make it worse" and just kept the system going, do you think it will ever lead to progress? Will the whole system ever improve?

You need to look for a solution outside of that system. Stop looking for lesser evils in the ballot box. First, look to the people immediately around you and try to join local organizations that might be directly working to improve their conditions (soup kitchens, women's shelters, etc). Then, organize labor: figure out how to join a union, if there isn't one read the IWW (or any other big union near you) manual on organizing your workplace and find support to start organizing your workplace. Then from there, your objective should be to take the workers' struggle to the national and international stage. Change doesn't come from the ballot box, it comes from building alternative power structures ourselves.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 34 points 3 days ago

actually this time it'll be different, we just won't have another crisis of capitalism that requires the stamping out of revolutionaries

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 33 points 3 days ago

Sure, show up and vote in a primary that was already decided by AIPAC money, if not the various other super PACs that have the power to decide elections. Trying to cause radical change through elections, via a party that is structurally designed from the ground up to suffocate radicalism, is like trying to stop the spread of STDs by hoping everyone stops having sex. You need a different approach. Join a union, if you're in the US join the PSL, if you can buy a gun and learn how to use it, and get started on building parallel power structures. You won't elect away climate collapse and fascism, they will be overthrown by force.

More reasoning on this issue from Lenin

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago

Shoutout to my boy Camilo Torres who famously said, "If Jesus was alive today he'd be a guerrillero."

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

imagine saying this about 9/11 hijackers -- they're just fighting for their country, don't blame them, blame Bin Laden!

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