The elites cackling at Bernie's funeral: he told them exactly what the problem was and how to fix it and they ignored him LOLOLOLOL
He would actually advance working class interests though, and all billionaire/corporate funding to the Democrats would be cut off as a result; Dems wouldn't let that happen.
That's the point of liberal "democracies" after all: keeping capitalists in power.
Get organized, that excuse of a democracy won't save you.
So instead of democracy, then what, in your opinion?
You need a congealed working class before you can have a democracy. Right now, we have a fractured and alienated working class, so all we get are the motions.
How do you engage with a democracy on those terms? What democracy is there to engage with? An election that is simply another consumer choice isn't democratic. You still have no control over what you're being offered and no participation on how the system is administered.
What you've listed are critiques. I agree with many of them. What I'm asking specifically is if not democracy, then what instead?
On paper, the United States is a federal republic, that votes for representatives for a bicameral parliamentary system that derives jurisprudence from English Common Law.
In practice, it's a plutocratic oligarchy.
For context, I consider myself to be a market socialist who still wants a representative federal republic for the United States.
I have my own ideas for re-enfranchisement for the working class:
These points are only achievable by voting for candidates who advocate for such policies which is admittedly a long shot, given the average citizen's knowledge of civics, political theory, economics, and statistics but it's what I believe can work.
Or would you prefer autocracy? The "dictatorship of the proletariat"? Monarchy? Theocracy? Anarchy? Oligarchy? Syndicalism?
My ultimate point is that you seem to still want "democracy", but you want it in practice, not just on paper, despite your claim of the point of democracies is to "keep capitalists in power".
These points are only achievable by voting for candidates who advocate for such policies which is admittedly a long shot
Politics is the art of the possible. The entire job of political leadership is to advocate for policy change.
Again, My question to you is if not democracy, then what? Or do you actually want democracy? Please propose your alternative to democracy, given your claim about its purpose in "keeping capitalists in power".
Or do you actually want democracy?
I want good policy.
If my democracy is producing bad candidates and bad policies, what purpose does it serve?
your alternative to democracy, given your claim about its purpose in “keeping capitalists in power”.
Capitalism is serviced by the illusion of choice in a functional monopoly. The solution is to break up the monopoly.
But that's a Herculean task.
You can't get good policy without democracy because democracy is part of all good policy. Non-democracy violates inalienable rights, which makes it inherently bad policy
You can’t get good policy without democracy
Put two policies on a coin and flip it. Half the time you'll get good policy. No democracy required.
Democracy grants input from a broad base of social perspective. But if that persective is polluted by propaganda and haunted by historical bigotry, you'll get out what you put in.
An apartheid democracy is less preferable than revolutionary anarchy, even if you didn't all get to line up at a voting booth and decide to overthrow the corrupt establishment
Non-democracy violates inalienable rights
If you can consistently violate a set of rights, they aren't inalienable. Pretending social obligations and taboos are written into the stars is what gets us some of the more destructive social impulses (abortion clinic bombings, white power marches, etc).
The coin flip is inherently part of policy, and it is bad policy to decide on policies with a coin flip
Inalienable rights are moral rights that can't be given up or transferred. It doesn't mean that the legal system can't fail to enforce the right such as by legally treating it as alienable like capitalism does in the employment contract. If the legal system doesn't grant it, that's a bad legal system.
Moral concepts have an objective sense that is unknowable.
Democracy is the answer, democrats are not.
We need a real progressive party
"Bernie is too old to be president" immediately votes in people just as old 3 times in a roe
Trump being the youngest at 78 is already too old if you ask me. If the US had a ceremonial presidency like many parliamentary republics then that'd be fine but for an active head politician that's just too old imo
Sanders put out a statement today:
Before I finished reading I was gonna say that while I love Bernie, him talking shit now seemed pretty "hindsight 20/20" considering he endorsed her.
But the "serious convo" and "stay tuned" is interesting. I hope he overthrows DNC or starts his own shit with AOC.
He endorsed her because it's at least better than Trump. Best of a no win situation
Dude, most of us kept our mouth shut as to not dissuade people from voting. Obviously it wasn't enough. But now we can gripe and cope freely.
I've been catching a lot of flack lately from other leftists because I've been preaching the lesser evil for 4 months. That's profoundly stupid, but I get it. Maybe I should've shilled even harder, anyway here we are.
At least it'll be nice to stop justifying evil just because it's lesser.
Exactly, dividing the left-wing even more would only lead to failure. The best action was to unify to squeak by, but it didn't work this time obviously.
Bernie's 2020 campaign national press secretary:
Yeah. There it is. I hope he’s able to speak his mind finally. We need him.
I appreciate BJG giving him a little shit because it was honestly irritating seeing him bow down to the DNC, at the same time, I think he truly thought he could push them left and that Trump is an existential threat to democracy.
Now he's seen over and over that the DNC has no intention of actually changing and was just paying lip service to the left, I hope he has big plans.
He's not going to run in 2028. AOC is going to run in 2028. And she'll lose just like Kamala did, because she's been bowing to the donors as well.
I never said he would, and I agree that AOC has conformed to the DNC way more then she should have, but it goes back to the same basic fear tactic the DNC has been using to keep them in line, hopefully it's now clear (as it seems to be with Bernies post) that they're full of shit
Edit: My hope is a real grassroots movement to incite change and promote progressive ideals without the DNC influence, our revolution was kinda like that but it fizzled out under the weight of the DNC and Bernie wasn't front and center leading it. Just imo
DSA doesn't seem to be picking up steam anymore either. I believe it got infiltrated by wreckers who created divisions within the movement.
Same thing with what got the squad in initially, Justice Democrats
And even among the actual left, there are Trots vs MLs etc. It fucking sucks.
Talking like communist trotskh vs Marxist-leninist?
If only we could go back in time and make Bernie the Dem candidate and save Harambe.
Not just Harambe, but also Peanut.
We coulda had a bad bitch.
You need to save these things for future use
The DNC needs to go. All of it. Literally just gone. There needs to be a real left grassroots party that maintains a much more tight ideological vision and focuses internally.
I agree 100% we needed him. If you asked me 8 years ago I'd even say I honestly believe we, as Americns, deserve him. I'm now very seriously wondering that. It's starting to feel like we don't. Im against collective punishment so I don't mean to say that implies people who are going to suffer from this deserve their suffering, but I'm not sure that implies we deserve a politician like him. Glad as hell we have him in whatever office we can though.
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