I am also weary of Bernie’s endless calls to do this or that while not specifying any way of doing it. I certainly don’t expect him to do anything more, he’s already made a much larger impact than most individuals ever can or will. But that entire tour with AoC kind of felt like only half of a useful thing. We all know it’s a problem. We all want to put a stop to it. But nobody knows how, that’s what’s missing. What do you want us to do, Bernie?!? Vote in the primaries, I guess? Would be nice if the next steps were included in the message to take action. Like an instant macaroni box whose instructions just say “You must make the macaroni!”, it feels a bit silly.
I get this feeling when I watch Jon Oliver. Jon’s really good at identifying the problem, demonstrating why its a problem, and making you kind of upset about it.
God forbid you ever watched Jon Oliver back to back because you’d go mad with the immediate understanding that you live in bizzaro world.
So, it would be nice if HBO had a second show which was more like myth busters where people championed each of the problems Jon pointed out and left the viewer with a clear understanding what they can do or at the least, what can be done.
He does try to give a solution. It’s just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen. Sadly, that is just the way it is. Same with Bernie. We actually can’t make the solutions happen. But both are raising public awareness, which “can” impact policy. So I guess watching and listening is what we can do.
It’s just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen.
There are some tremendously powerful actions Bernie could be suggesting we do to fix this mess.
For example, he could be publicly calling for people to:
Perpare for and participate in a general strike, which would target the establishment’s income streams, and is capable of bringing a fascist government to its knees if done on a large enough scale. Immigrant farm workers are already potentially going forward with this plan of action.
Contact a grassroots decentralized union like the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace so that the general strike is even more effective (plus, ya know, better pay and working conditions as a bonus!)
Vaguely calling for the end of oligarchy instead of loudly calling for those very actionable steps is a bit of a missed opportunity for the resistance.
However, If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Look at how effective the above mentioned methods were when used in Chile in 2019.. If we completely reject the political system and rebel on a mass scale, there is NOTHING they can do to stop us.
I think he believes, like I do, that a general strike is not going to happen right now. If he were to call for it, and it fails to happen, he loses a lot of his influence. And most people aren’t willing to put thier livelihood on the line yet.
As for unions… they are already on the up swing. More and more places are unionizing. I don’t think that effort needs his help at the moment. But I could be wrong on that.
Union membership declined from 2023 to 2024 to under 10% of the US workforce, despite a high public approval.
I think Bernie explaining to people how unionizing could be weaponized against the regime would help, and particularly if he endorsed the IWW; a more militant union who are not corporate captured, nor only seek increased wages and are then become pacified as other more normal trade unions tend toward. The IWW is the only worker-led anti-capitalist union in the US.
I do think that “the system” (not any particular person or group of people, but the more abstract social meta-organism) is evolved, all systems are, to integrate and channel possible destabilizing forces into neutralized or even system-reaffirming forces. The system does not “platform” people who would legitimately threaten the system as a general rule. Jon Oliver is a pressure release valve, if he was to propose solutions that threatened to alter the system too much (systems see significant alterations as akin to death), he would be deplatformed organically. Again, I must stress that it is not an actual person or organization explicitly setting out to do this, like some sort of shady Comedy Central Illuminati. It’s just the same as how our body has a bunch of independent organs and cells that all work together without exactly trying to or knowing that they’re doing so.
Unfortunately Bernie is largely the same sort of thing. We can be assured of this by the fact that he is influential. Almost without exception, the more influential someone wants to be, the more pro-systemic they must be. In Bernie’s case he may not even realize how pro-systemic he is, he likely sees himself as more anti-systemic. But he is anti-systemic in the same way as a white blood cell is anti-systemic - that is, not at all, and only in appearance without inspection of the bigger picture. I suspect this is why he ends up not proposing any clear course of action. His role, although again I think he is unaware of this, is to create the sense that establishment dissent exists and is possible, that change and reform is possible. I say this without taking a stance on whether it is actually possible or not. Both in a system where it is possible and in a system where it is not possible, there would still be a flag bearer for that possibility regardless of its actual existence.
What I mean to say is that the system self-selects for the type of people who acknowledge problems but not the type of people who make proposals to fix them. It wants to appear to be investigating the desires of its constituents while not actually doing so - the system only cares about its constituents in so far as its constituents lead to the system’s well-being as a whole. The system does not intrinsically care for its constituents well-being. So while systems do indeed evolve and legitimately investigate ways to improve their own well-being, they will only appear to investigate ways to approve the well-being of their constituents, if they can help it.
All just my impressions of course, I hate talking in an authoritative voice about my ideas, but it’s better than prefacing every sentence with “I think”, “it seems like”, etc.
I don’t know how anyone can watch John Oliver for over 5 minutes. I like his points but man is he irritating. He sounds like a turkey when he gets excited
If he said what needs to be done, he’d be imprisoned immediately for inciting violence against the president, and for planning a coup. Until he has troops on his side, he can not tell you what actually has to happen.
That’s always been my issue with sanders. Also as much as people hate to hear it, he couldn’t even win the support of the Democrats, there’s just no way he would win a general election.
Another thing, im tired of hearing leftists say “we want old white men out of politics” while asking for Bernie.
He should be an advisor to a younger candidate, not the candidate himself
Edit: Lemmy is wild, you could give the most inoffensive criticism or point about Bernie sanders and you get downvoted. There is zero tolerance for dissenting views when it comes to Bernie, he’s become a god to some people, like the opposite end of the cult of Trump
You’re getting downvoted for this bullshit misinformation:
Also as much as people hate to hear it, he couldn’t even win the support of the Democrats, there’s just no way he would win a general election.
That’s pushing the fallacy that partisan primaries are somehow necessarily picking the candidate most likely to win in the general election, but they’re not. And the assumption breaks down particularly hard in Bernie’s case, because a huge part of his path to victory would’ve been his ability to transcend American political parties and draw a lot of support from exactly the people who ended up voting for Trump because they wanted to burn down the political establishment at all costs. He, uniquely among Democratic candidates, could’ve beaten Trump at his own game.
But that would’ve required neoliberals to “vote blue no matter who,” so we got fascism instead.
The point is, just because the party prefers a certain candidate does not mean the public as a whole prefers that candidate. The assumption that the winner of the primary is that party’s most electable option for the general is false.
The entire concept of having political parties that hold primary elections is fundamentally bad.
I am also weary of Bernie’s endless calls to do this or that while not specifying any way of doing it. I certainly don’t expect him to do anything more, he’s already made a much larger impact than most individuals ever can or will. But that entire tour with AoC kind of felt like only half of a useful thing. We all know it’s a problem. We all want to put a stop to it. But nobody knows how, that’s what’s missing. What do you want us to do, Bernie?!? Vote in the primaries, I guess? Would be nice if the next steps were included in the message to take action. Like an instant macaroni box whose instructions just say “You must make the macaroni!”, it feels a bit silly.
I get this feeling when I watch Jon Oliver. Jon’s really good at identifying the problem, demonstrating why its a problem, and making you kind of upset about it.
God forbid you ever watched Jon Oliver back to back because you’d go mad with the immediate understanding that you live in bizzaro world.
So, it would be nice if HBO had a second show which was more like myth busters where people championed each of the problems Jon pointed out and left the viewer with a clear understanding what they can do or at the least, what can be done.
He does try to give a solution. It’s just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen. Sadly, that is just the way it is. Same with Bernie. We actually can’t make the solutions happen. But both are raising public awareness, which “can” impact policy. So I guess watching and listening is what we can do.
…and if nothing else, documenting what is being done, if it will ever come to a point where it can be turned around.
There’s a reason the Nazis paved over and planted fucking trees on as many concentration camps they possibly could before they got overrun.
Yeah I love it when he provides solutions.
There are some tremendously powerful actions Bernie could be suggesting we do to fix this mess.
For example, he could be publicly calling for people to:
Vaguely calling for the end of oligarchy instead of loudly calling for those very actionable steps is a bit of a missed opportunity for the resistance.
However, If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Look at how effective the above mentioned methods were when used in Chile in 2019.. If we completely reject the political system and rebel on a mass scale, there is NOTHING they can do to stop us.
I think he believes, like I do, that a general strike is not going to happen right now. If he were to call for it, and it fails to happen, he loses a lot of his influence. And most people aren’t willing to put thier livelihood on the line yet. As for unions… they are already on the up swing. More and more places are unionizing. I don’t think that effort needs his help at the moment. But I could be wrong on that.
Union membership declined from 2023 to 2024 to under 10% of the US workforce, despite a high public approval.
I think Bernie explaining to people how unionizing could be weaponized against the regime would help, and particularly if he endorsed the IWW; a more militant union who are not corporate captured, nor only seek increased wages and are then become pacified as other more normal trade unions tend toward. The IWW is the only worker-led anti-capitalist union in the US.
Hm, so why do you think he didn’t?
AFAIK he’s never spoken of the IWW before.
I would love to see a politician as prominent as Bernie openly call for that. But he’d get assassinated so fast…
I do think that “the system” (not any particular person or group of people, but the more abstract social meta-organism) is evolved, all systems are, to integrate and channel possible destabilizing forces into neutralized or even system-reaffirming forces. The system does not “platform” people who would legitimately threaten the system as a general rule. Jon Oliver is a pressure release valve, if he was to propose solutions that threatened to alter the system too much (systems see significant alterations as akin to death), he would be deplatformed organically. Again, I must stress that it is not an actual person or organization explicitly setting out to do this, like some sort of shady Comedy Central Illuminati. It’s just the same as how our body has a bunch of independent organs and cells that all work together without exactly trying to or knowing that they’re doing so.
Unfortunately Bernie is largely the same sort of thing. We can be assured of this by the fact that he is influential. Almost without exception, the more influential someone wants to be, the more pro-systemic they must be. In Bernie’s case he may not even realize how pro-systemic he is, he likely sees himself as more anti-systemic. But he is anti-systemic in the same way as a white blood cell is anti-systemic - that is, not at all, and only in appearance without inspection of the bigger picture. I suspect this is why he ends up not proposing any clear course of action. His role, although again I think he is unaware of this, is to create the sense that establishment dissent exists and is possible, that change and reform is possible. I say this without taking a stance on whether it is actually possible or not. Both in a system where it is possible and in a system where it is not possible, there would still be a flag bearer for that possibility regardless of its actual existence.
What I mean to say is that the system self-selects for the type of people who acknowledge problems but not the type of people who make proposals to fix them. It wants to appear to be investigating the desires of its constituents while not actually doing so - the system only cares about its constituents in so far as its constituents lead to the system’s well-being as a whole. The system does not intrinsically care for its constituents well-being. So while systems do indeed evolve and legitimately investigate ways to improve their own well-being, they will only appear to investigate ways to approve the well-being of their constituents, if they can help it.
All just my impressions of course, I hate talking in an authoritative voice about my ideas, but it’s better than prefacing every sentence with “I think”, “it seems like”, etc.
Grow your own food, make your own things, slash your expenses. If everyone does this, the enemy loses most of their power
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I don’t know how anyone can watch John Oliver for over 5 minutes. I like his points but man is he irritating. He sounds like a turkey when he gets excited
Lol. I like him, hes funny and I like his self deprecating comedy style. Not everything is for everyone, I know.
His energy is a bit much for me
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I feel like Jordan Klepper would be perfect for that, he does great on the street engaging with folks and trying to explain their ignorance slowly
(FYI Jon is the frazzled old mensch, John is the increasingly frustrated Brit)
If he said what needs to be done, he’d be imprisoned immediately for inciting violence against the president, and for planning a coup. Until he has troops on his side, he can not tell you what actually has to happen.
Someone with power has to say it or nothing will happen.
Then it is doomed to fail. Power has to come from the bottom up. People need to learn how to take power back for themselves and their local community
We already know what needs to be done, we just aren’t allowed to talk about it.
The Tree of Liberty is thirsty.
Damn it, now I am going to put on a Bernie voice and shout “you must make the macaroni!” next time I’m making some mac and cheese.
That’s always been my issue with sanders. Also as much as people hate to hear it, he couldn’t even win the support of the Democrats, there’s just no way he would win a general election.
Another thing, im tired of hearing leftists say “we want old white men out of politics” while asking for Bernie. He should be an advisor to a younger candidate, not the candidate himself
Edit: Lemmy is wild, you could give the most inoffensive criticism or point about Bernie sanders and you get downvoted. There is zero tolerance for dissenting views when it comes to Bernie, he’s become a god to some people, like the opposite end of the cult of Trump
Who would be a suitable younger Bernie replacement?
AOC off the top of my head but I’m not American so I don’t know all your young players
You’re getting downvoted for this bullshit misinformation:
That’s pushing the fallacy that partisan primaries are somehow necessarily picking the candidate most likely to win in the general election, but they’re not. And the assumption breaks down particularly hard in Bernie’s case, because a huge part of his path to victory would’ve been his ability to transcend American political parties and draw a lot of support from exactly the people who ended up voting for Trump because they wanted to burn down the political establishment at all costs. He, uniquely among Democratic candidates, could’ve beaten Trump at his own game.
But that would’ve required neoliberals to “vote blue no matter who,” so we got fascism instead.
He lost the democratic primary, that is literally losing the support of your party
The point is, just because the party prefers a certain candidate does not mean the public as a whole prefers that candidate. The assumption that the winner of the primary is that party’s most electable option for the general is false.
The entire concept of having political parties that hold primary elections is fundamentally bad.