MarxMadness @ MarxMadness @lemmygrad.ml

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Incredibly soft

They were also part of the UN force in Mali.

When you have to resort to stuff like this to criticize a country's foreign policy, you don't have much to go on.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/

The survey team found that compared to public opinion patterns in the U.S., in China there was very high satisfaction with the central government. In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing. In contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on U.S. citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.

Every politician who supported this should face a Nuremberg-style tribunal.

Have to apply that thinking to Democrats, too. They were backing Israel unconditionally from the jump, and were so married to that support that it probably cost them the election.

A deterrent is a means of getting the other side not to nuke you in the first place. If an attack occurs, that means your deterrent has failed.

A defense system is a means of intercepting nukes once the attack has started. I don't think any country on the planet can do that reliably. And the reliability has to be extremely high to be worth anything at all, because even one nuke getting through can mean an entire metro area is leveled.

Second, India, unlike Pakistan, has a robust nuclear defense system

I don't think such a thing exists.

A second plane has hit the sea

you are literally making the case that for large swathes of the country that they cannot be peruaded with current material conditions and strategies

...I said that's true of maybe a quarter or third of the country, yes. You think it's far more.

It's weird to lump material conditions and strategy together here. Material conditions are largely out of our control, while strategy is very much in our control. I'm saying parts of the strategy (such as telling ourselves that most of the country is basically unreachable) should change.

You have not really answered any of the questions I have posited meaningfully

You're firing off a dozen or more questions every post and treating this as some sort of socratic "hide the ball" exercise. I'm trying to have a conversation.

If it is due to a political horizon stunted for a lifetime then how come you escaped it?

A stunted political horizon is a great way to phrase it. A lot of people peek over that horizon at some point in their lives, but turn back pretty soon because:

• There are no significant organized politics to the left of the Democratic Party in the U.S.
• There is no short-term theory of change in the U.S. left that is as credible (and safe) as "vote for someone who will pass a law to address this"
• Trying to change either of the above is a herculean task that will probably endanger (at minimum) your job

They then convince themselves that anything left of Chuck Shumer is pie-in-the-sky stuff that isn't really serious, that Democrats do some actually good things, that some good things are better than none, that the bad things Democrats do will happen anyway, etc. Notably, a lot of people tell themselves this even if their material conditions aren't good and are downwardly mobile. This is likely because even if you reject those justifications, you're still stuck with the bullet points above, which are a pretty raw deal.

What got me to reject these justifications was a combination of Democrats largely abandoning any attempts to address major issues and Bernie offering a very credible peek over that horizon you mentioned. It's replicable at scale because the "Democrats getting even worse" part isn't going anywhere, and by all estimations is a fairly mainstream opinion.

a general safety net for all

Why shouldn't there be a safety net for all?

I think we're losing track of what the other person is talking about.

I agree that a large minority of the U.S. population, maybe a quarter or a third, is unreachable in the short term (i.e., anything short of a government program offering them major direct benefits). They're probably unreachable for a while even after that due to reactionary attitudes and all the cultural forces that reinforce those.

I think basically the remainder of the population (or certainly the remainder that would ever be politically engaged) can be brought around with promises of major direct benefits (e.g., Medicare for All). I don't think any sorts of benefits within the ability of leftist orgs to actually deliver right now -- benefits more on the scale of the BPP's free breakfast program, or an abortion access fund -- are enough to move the needle right now.

Because we can't offer material benefits on the scale of what would really motivate people, and because mere promises of such benefits are of questionable value, I think we do have to do some politics and try to convince people that our program is better than whatever else is on offer. Saying we can do nothing until conditions change is defeatist, as is saying that it's simply impossible to convince people to change their politics without a materialist carrot and/or stick.

What I'm arguing against is the the maximalist version of "they are choosing to buy in to the system because if they wanted they could just read about the problems I've read about." They see the same looming problems we see, they just justify them away in ways we don't. We don't have to convince them (for example) that climate change is a dire problem, we have to dispel the justification that (for example) their favorite neoliberal approach to the problem is the most we could possibly do. It's not wilful ignorance, it's a political horizon that's been stunted by a lifetime of basically no significant political actors suggesting anything outside of the neoliberal consensus.

The way you reach people is to offer material benefits within the short term.

This has also been tried (the feasible version of it is mutual aid) without much success. The reasons it and other strategies have failed in the U.S. are (1) the repressive arm of the state is so strong, and (2) it's a rich enough country that trying to make it within the system is still a decent option for most people.

Now if we're talking offering them benefits the left can't actually deliver in the short term -- guaranteed housing, education, healthcare, etc. -- you have to go back to attacking their justifications for supporting the status quo. They aren't unaware of (for example) the problems for-profit healthcare causes, and they aren't willfully ignoring those problems, either. They justify it to themselves.

Thanks for linking to that Red Sails post -- that's what I had in mind. I think it significantly overstates its case.

Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to.

It's not that they could look past the propaganda if only they really wanted to, it's not even that they're avoiding the cracks in their worldview. They see the cracks, but they justify them in the manner I described above.

I think the way you get to reachable people is by attacking those justifications, not pointing to the cracks that they already see.

The existence of coins does not imply a capital-based society, in the same way the emergence of personal computers in the 70s does not mean the economy of the 70s was highly computerized.

Check out David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years for some anthropology on how exchange worked in early societies. Trading currency for goods or services was the exception, not the rule.

o7

If it is any consolation, they are not brainwashed.

There's something to the idea that a lot of people aren't particularly interested in learning, or even in stuff as minor as not repeating bullshit. But I've never fully bought the "no one is really brainwashed, they could just read a book" idea, because it really underestimates the strength of various types of group psychology. Think church congregations, MLMs, sports fandoms, pressure from peer groups, or anything else people get invested in despite seemingly obvious material incentives to back away.

I think a lot of people justify those situations to themselves with ideas like:

• This group has its problems, but the alternative is worse
• The problems this group has aren't really that bad, and enduring them is worth something
• The problems in this group happen to people who deserve them
• This group gives me a real shot at something really good

Identifying which of these ideas "brainwashed" people are clinging to and attacking that seems like a better approach than simply writing them off (setting aside your true incorrigibles, who it does make sense to write off).

I’ll just start screaming and swearing at these people if they want to start shit with me.

Honestly, what's the goal here? If other approaches aren't going to get through to them, I get trying something else, but this doesn't sound like it'll work either. If you're no longer trying to reach them, this might feel good a little in the moment, but it's going to stress out you and the family more on your side pretty soon. It seems like it could only get those people to pay less attention to what you say as well.

What is this from?

people right now who didn’t understand they were voting for nazis

I don't think these people exist in any significant number. Even if they do, the mythical swing voter has such inscrutable and varied politics that there isn't any message that will work reliably.