disagreeing with your politics isn’t a purity test… its a political disagreement. it is also a pretty transparent double standard on your part. in this thread you felt free to complain about ‘tankies’ as a broad and poorly-defined category, but people being opposed to preserving capitalism is a purity test.
Capital only cares at all when you hit them in the wallet, so I try to do that wherever possible.
it sounds like you agree with me, but then refuse to engage with politics that is motivated to actually do that
i already stated what i am doing. my work is primarily in mutual aid and antiwar protesting. ie making sure people in your immediate community can eat, building non-commodified spaces that demonstrate things can work differently. for antiwar protests i’ve done everything from letter writing to bird-dogging my reps/senators. i’ve been doing tenant union organizing for years. i do other things too, but i’m not going to broadcast those here.
none of it is glamorous but it builds real relationships and real power outside the state and capital, which is the point.
That’s all good stuff, I don’t see our standpoints as mutually exclusive at all. What are some policy goals you support to bring the government more in line with your views? Or is that not something you believe in?
decommodify housing, end arrests for homelessness and public camping, universal healthcare independent of employment, universal childcare, free higher education, universal free pubic transit, dismantle the military-prison-border complex and use all of that money towards social infrastructure, abolish the supreme court, abolish the senate, destroy every nuclear weapon
Agreed on all points. For the abolishing supreme court and senate part, I agree in theory, but I’d require a detailed plan for what comes after legally, so as not to just invite a new breed of corruption to take the place of the old.
We aren’t enemies, or even very ideologically opposed at all, and we need as many standing in solidarity as possible to have even a chance of toppling the capitalist behemoth in any meaningfull way.
Wishing you the best in your efforts to help your community.
I agree in theory, but I’d require a detailed plan for what comes after legally, so as not to just invite a new breed of corruption to take the place of the old.
the senate just shouldn’t exist; it exists to give slave states a veto over any democratic majority. unicameral proportional legislature would be orders of magnitude more democratic than what we have now.
courts and judges are mechanisms of state power that enforce property relations and class hierarchy. as a first step i’d like to see restorative/transformative justice approaches instead of punitive and community accountable practices instead of state violence.
as for the supreme court i don’t think it needs to exist with a bunch of life-term assholes in robes appointed by politicians making the calls. randomly select large panels of citizens for each case, like it’s a jury but for constitutional questions.
I’d support all of that, while keeping a keen eye out for corporate interests trying to co-opt and corrupt any new rule set to maintain their stranglehold on power.
good to hear. the point of decommodifying housing and abolishing/nationalizing the various monopolies dominating our lives is so that those corporate interests do not exist and cannot exert power on the political economy.
i fear that trying to control these capital formations without crushing them first is going to be a losing battle no matter what changes you try to make. that’s my main criticism of the liberal track, i don’t think there’s any real way these things can be controlled.
disagreeing with your politics isn’t a purity test… its a political disagreement. it is also a pretty transparent double standard on your part. in this thread you felt free to complain about ‘tankies’ as a broad and poorly-defined category, but people being opposed to preserving capitalism is a purity test.
it sounds like you agree with me, but then refuse to engage with politics that is motivated to actually do that
Okay so let’s engage. What are you doing to ‘actually challenge capital’? I’m always looking for new good ideas.
i already stated what i am doing. my work is primarily in mutual aid and antiwar protesting. ie making sure people in your immediate community can eat, building non-commodified spaces that demonstrate things can work differently. for antiwar protests i’ve done everything from letter writing to bird-dogging my reps/senators. i’ve been doing tenant union organizing for years. i do other things too, but i’m not going to broadcast those here.
none of it is glamorous but it builds real relationships and real power outside the state and capital, which is the point.
That’s all good stuff, I don’t see our standpoints as mutually exclusive at all. What are some policy goals you support to bring the government more in line with your views? Or is that not something you believe in?
as a start?
decommodify housing, end arrests for homelessness and public camping, universal healthcare independent of employment, universal childcare, free higher education, universal free pubic transit, dismantle the military-prison-border complex and use all of that money towards social infrastructure, abolish the supreme court, abolish the senate, destroy every nuclear weapon
Agreed on all points. For the abolishing supreme court and senate part, I agree in theory, but I’d require a detailed plan for what comes after legally, so as not to just invite a new breed of corruption to take the place of the old.
We aren’t enemies, or even very ideologically opposed at all, and we need as many standing in solidarity as possible to have even a chance of toppling the capitalist behemoth in any meaningfull way.
Wishing you the best in your efforts to help your community.
the senate just shouldn’t exist; it exists to give slave states a veto over any democratic majority. unicameral proportional legislature would be orders of magnitude more democratic than what we have now.
courts and judges are mechanisms of state power that enforce property relations and class hierarchy. as a first step i’d like to see restorative/transformative justice approaches instead of punitive and community accountable practices instead of state violence.
as for the supreme court i don’t think it needs to exist with a bunch of life-term assholes in robes appointed by politicians making the calls. randomly select large panels of citizens for each case, like it’s a jury but for constitutional questions.
I’d support all of that, while keeping a keen eye out for corporate interests trying to co-opt and corrupt any new rule set to maintain their stranglehold on power.
good to hear. the point of decommodifying housing and abolishing/nationalizing the various monopolies dominating our lives is so that those corporate interests do not exist and cannot exert power on the political economy.
i fear that trying to control these capital formations without crushing them first is going to be a losing battle no matter what changes you try to make. that’s my main criticism of the liberal track, i don’t think there’s any real way these things can be controlled.