Both things can be true.
One step at a time.
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Yeah, splitting up isn't a great thing right now. Let's team up together and fight the nazis.
It's almost like some people here desperately want to create division in the left.
Glad to see it backfiring on one post.
damn right. in the US, performing labor is seen as more important than human life. that tells you a lot.
It is a super weird and self contradictory thing. Because yeah, the notion is that labor’s important because labor is how anything gets done, and without things getting done, how does anyone get to live a life at all? Entropy is real after all. So people who would do no labor yet get support from the rest of society are seen as execrable parasites.
And yet… the big goal is to become wealthy so that you can live on the labor of others. The whole enterprise of business is about playing the system so that you can get more for less personal labor. And the highest form of this is to work not at all yet receive even more than mere support: total indulgence.
So how are people at once shat upon for doing no labor but wanting basic support, while others are idealized for doing no labor but wanting total indulgence?
I’m “collectivize the farms and factories” left, and even I recognize that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get to the second state from the first state than from where we are now.
I do wish the left broadly could unify under the idea that we need to make incremental progress.
A lot of people on this very site think there's going to be a glorious people's revolution any day now. I could spend hours describing how unrealistic that fantasy is, but I think more people rather live with their indulgent fantasies than go out and plant trees that they will never sit in the shade of.
The label we're gathering under is progressives, it's mostly leftists but you leave the praxis at home and recognize that no one is going to read a pamphlet
Turns out, when you have good messaging, most people are on board with the practical changes we could make today. Mumdani is a rockstar at it
The Zohran Mamdani campaign has peeled the curtain back from American politics and exposed how much of it has been kayfabe all along. And the people writing the scripts are not happy about it.
I hope it continues, while I know he will win, I hope he also succeeds against the ringmasters and production executives who have manufactured our reality.
While that's true, I think by positioning ourselves at the 2nd state, it allows us to "negotiate" our way down to getting the 1st state. Its kind of like haggling. If you start at the more extreme position, opposition will (in an ideal scenario) try to find a middle ground to agree on. And that middle ground would look like the 1st state. It's a way of combatting the ratcheting effect.
I feel like you hear the top line because those specific liberals are trying to convince independents, moderates, conservatives, and people on the right to agree on at least something. Many of the people they’re trying to convince would give a big “NO” if they didn’t include that 40 hours part.
The fact that there isn’t even a “YES” with the 40 hours part caveat is the bad sign.
I don’t think most of the people labeled as liberals would disagree with what the people labeled leftist are saying, but their trying to convince the other people that aren’t even bought in to the first step.
This is also an issue where the people that don’t want to help others have over 50% of the power in the US federal government currently.
Our energy should be focused on bringing these progressive help options to everyone at the state level right now to have the greatest chance of getting these programs implemented.
More and more I'm convinced most Americans have no idea what a liberal, leftist, or other terms actually are. They're just parroting the words they hear from their feeds.
'Liberal' is the funniest because both red and blue accuse each other of being them. My guess is blues think liberalism is laissez-faire and the reds think it's woke social freedoms. They're both slightly on the right track, but not at all.
And in the rest of the free world...
Liberals: No one should live in poverty regardless of their ability to perform labour.
Leftists: Yoooo, 40 hrs is fucked. What is this, the 1300s?
Liberals: Actually, yeah that is kind of fucked. An employer shouldn't be ble to encroach on an employee's life that much. This is an imbalance of liberties.
Leftist: Great! So what are we going to do bout it?
Liberals: Fuck all. We can't be sure employees don't want this too. Besides, someone will sort it out soon, they always do.
Leftists: I'll donate a union $5 so I can tell my friend I'm left.
And in the next five years, some prolific young gun politician swoops in the 35 hour work week. But due to cultural reasons, everyone keeps working 40 hours and gets plenty of overtime for it. This having the employer pay more and the employee see little benefit because the state haven't adjusted their now dated tax brackets. But along with very good minimum wage standards and an unemployment rate < 5%, both the leftist and the liberal never found the true source of the poverty and so continued using foreign corporations and large franchise to fulfill almost all of their needs. And everyone but their local infrastructures and communities lived happily ever after until the next global recession hit. The leftist and liberal "really meant it this time" when they said they'd support local and try to live more independently, but the inconvenience of it meant they silently did not.
Liberals: Fuck all. We can't be sure employees don't want this too. Besides, someone will sort it out soon, they always do.
Leftists: I'll donate a union $5 so I can tell my friends I'm left.
The most real understanding of our political world tbh.
Liberals: We should compromise with the fascists and blame trans people for our incompetence
Leftists: DOWN WITH FASCISM AND DOWN WITH BIGOTRY
This misses the point. The point is no one, especially someone who has given back to society by preforming labor, should be left out in the cold.
I think the point is nobody should live in poverty. Fullstop. Addendum to that, workers should be paid a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. But the first sentence is the core of everything.
They don't agree with that, they think that if you have a job you are more worthy of being allowed to live.
Consider an example of a women, who does not work but raises childern and perform other chores to support her husband.
She is quite important in contribution to the society, but when we talk just about working people, we overlook her.
And I am sure there are many such people who are critical for the function of the society, but do not "make money" (i,e wage labor nor even owning capital for that matter)
This is why, IMO, this distinction of "people who work" is counter productive. Everyone should be able to live without poverty.
someone who has given back to society by preforming labor
These are two things that are often lumped together but don't really have anything to do with one another.
You can be employed and give absolutely nothing back to society (tbh, probably the majority office workers are in that category). You can even be employed and take from society (looking at you, people working in e.g. the tobacco industry).
And you can be unemployed and massively give back to society. Just look at the people who do voluntary work or at the millions of moms and dads who are raising the next generation that will keep society running, all completely without compensation.
I spend all day sitting in front of a PC so that numbers on the screen of some investor go up. That's not giving back to society.
Liberals watching fascism evolve in real time: "Fuck your guns! Give them over!"
Leftists: "Uh, hell no, are you crazy?"
Liberals: "You'll get KILLED!"
Leftists: "Yeah, that's going to be the outcome whether you fight or not."
Liberals: "Where my 2A people at?!" (got a burn in there. tee hee hee)
Me: "I have loads of guns, practice best I know how, several times a week. Tell me what you would have me do."
Liberals: <FUCKING SILENCE>
Never heard a single word, not one reply to that question. Here's your chance to shine!
I haven't seen masked men in my town. None have come for my brown, legal, immigrant wife. As of this year, I am not outdoors unarmed. Indoors? You can't catch me shitting without a firearm in reach. Insane? Abso-fucking-lutly insane. No one should live like that. But this is where we're at in America.
Want to hear something nuts? I was just now showing my wife that I can buy all the gear these fascists are wearing on Amazon.com. Yes, POLICE patches, all of it.
So, to sum, they've demonstrated that they'll kill me. They've demonstrated that anyone can look like them. You go figure out how to take that information.
Ban for "inciting violence" in 3, 2...
This is a bit like responding "All lives matter" when hearing about Black Lives Matter.
It's more like "End Slavery" not "End Debt Bondage".
One is clearly more serious than the other and it's not the 40 hr workers.
I'm sure you can get into the anti-confederate nature of that.
Ask the top to apply their thinking to retirement. That might make them think a little deeper.
"Oh it's different, we'll have earned our welfare" - Liberals