Primaries aren't even required to be fair elections. The party can pull whatever shenanigans it wants, and there's nothing any of us can do about it so long as third parties are ruled out.
If the democrats decided to straight up go back to the days of deciding nominees in smoke-filled rooms with no primary process at all, then would you still say we need to vote for them unconditionally as the lesser evil? Is there any breaking point at all where you'll reject that approach?
Because if so, then I am simply already past that point. And if not, then you seem utterly hopeless to me. They can keep moving further and further right, removing any possibility for you to do anything about it, and you'll keep supporting them unconditionally. I consider that a ridiculous position and it's even more ridiculous to think the general public would accept that.
Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
Lenin's argument was that even if an electoral system is deeply flawed, participation is necessary in order to reach people who are invested in the system. In addition to spreading the message, it also provides a way to assess the strength and popularity of a platform, and it can serve as a means of testing and weeding out prospective leaders who might be opportunists.
"I have animals slaughtered for me on a weekly basis and lie about it, but I'm deeply concerned about unsubstantiated rumors about a leftist streamer using a shock collar."
Oh please. It would just be something else. If you want an excuse to avoid changing your habits you'll find it.
Why should the attitude of vegans even matter? "Somebody who supports your rights was rude to me once so now I won't support yours." Is that your principle?
Because you need coordination and organization. If you don't reach a critical mass of participation then the handful of people involved will just be handled as if they were skipping work for any other reason. And if it only lasts a day it can simply be waited out.
Strikes require funds, funds require dues, dues require unions. You have to ensure that striking workers will have some form of security in order to reach a critical mass. People have families to feed. Striking without funds or organization could only work if everyone was really dedicated to the cause, and if that was the case, then what's stopping them from forming a union and collecting dues in order to do it right?
You can't lay down the sort of moral "line in the sand" that you need if participating means, "I didn't show up to work, all of my coworkers did, and now I'm unemployed and will be on the streets if I can't find a way to make rent soon." These "General Strike Now!" calls happen basically every other week, with no coordination or thought of strategy.
Strikes involve inherent individual risk for a collective benefit. It's a collective action problem, which can only be overcome by an organized structure mitigating the risks and inspiring confidence in the outcome. A "wildcat general strike" isn't really a thing.
If only. You're overestimating the level of solidarity and political development of American workers and underestimating the effectiveness of strike-breaking tactics. If every location did it, they can't shut them all down, but if only one other location does it, they can, and the threat of that makes it all the more difficult to organize.
You have to understand the history of how unions were dismantled.
Stage 1 was the New Deal era, when the government was cooperative and played nice - just so long as you kick out any Reds. And what's a "Red?" A "Red" is someone who has a broader political consciousness, who sees common cause with workers of other industries, who will support striking in solidarity or cooperating with a general strike. But, so long as the union is just about narrowly advancing the interests of their specific members, that's fine. Better than fine, actually. You can get some real carrots to go this route, not just sticks.
Stage 2 was the Reagan era. At this point, because the unions have no solidarity with each other, because they kicked out all the "Reds," they are now more or less powerless to act as a collective group, as a conscious political entity. Furthermore, there's now divisions between workers. The unions are more about protecting the senior employees than about helping everyone, and people see it. Now that they've kicked out the "Reds," the government starts labelling them all as "Reds," or they deploy all sorts of other propaganda about how they're corrupt or lazy or whatever. Union protections get rolled back (along with social programs), the carrots start to disappear, now it's just sticks, and the organization to resist doesn't exist anymore.
Stage 3 is where we're at now. Unions have been almost entirely dissolved. People have all sorts of brainworms about them, and when workers start to organize they get fired, the company makes everyone attend meetings with anti-union propaganda, protections are more or less non-existent. The handful that do exist are narrowly self-interested. People are not only divided but atomized. Unions have become lost, broken, and scattered to the wind.
So it's not that simple. It is not an easy task to undo all the effort that the rich and powerful have done to keep us from organizing.
whenever a movement comes that starts moving that way, the movement gets scattered via every way imaginable (lawyers, FCC confusing net neutrality with net neutrality, patriots have nothing to hide, and Google’s “we collect but we have no plans to use it, yet besides we don’t do evil, yet”). Therefore as an example of “something that is bad that is not remediated because there is not a functioning society”
More specifically, it's subverted by the rich and powerful. Which they are able to do as a natural consequence of the capitalist system in which we live. The only way to stop them from doing that sort of thing, of achieving a functional society, is to radically change things such that the upper class either no longer exists, or has a very limited ability to exert influence over government policy and public opinion.
The USA did/does bad stuff to acquire power then grows a conscience and forces other nations to abide (perhaps to maintain their position of power). All growing up I had the USA portrayed as the “White Knight” who was protecting & allowing the world to grow while the bad guys were kept in check.
That's just propaganda and myth. The US went into Iraq and Afghanistan because of the material interests of the rich. Note that they have not invaded, or even stopped giving weapons to countries with atrocious human rights like Saudi Arabia or Israel. US foreign policy has always been about imperialism, it's just more mask-off now than it has been.
I wish that all the people in congress (republican and democrat) crossed the aisle on every 3rd issue based on what would actually be good for constituents.
You know who loved crossing the aisle? Barack Obama. He ran as much more progressive than he actually governed, he bent over backwards to work with the Republicans even when the Democrats had a trifecta in government. And what did that get him? Complete stonewalling, vitriol, and hatred.
The mentality of the right today, this total unwillingness to compromise, has been seen before in history. It was the same mentality that they had in the Antebellum period regarding slavery. It was the mentality of Hitler, refusing to be satisfied even after taking Austria and Czechoslovakia. Each time, there has only been one way for that mentality to be changed, and that is by stomping it into the dirt and crushing it by force of arms. The right will simply keep going, and every concession will be percieved as a sign of weakness, up until reality smacks them down in one form or another. Hopefully, that will happen before it reaches the scale of global thermonuclear war.
How many times we have to try and fail to accomplish anything with this centrist, compromising approach, before you're willing to consider the fact that it doesn't work if the other side is stonewalling?
If consensus reaches that indeed the government is wiretapping and such then in a functioning society the voters will educate and push for the reforms… and society isnt functioning currently.
The government is wiretapping. This isn't paranoia, it's a fact. In the Bush years, there was some controversy because they started doing it without a warrant, just bulk collection of data on everyone, with no evidence of wrongdoing. Then Obama got in, said he'd change things, then kept using those same tools, and when it came to light thanks to Edward Snowden, rather than the people responsible being held criminally liable, Snowden was hunted to the ends of the earth for revealing these crimes.
I'm afraid you're several decades out of time. If you said that the government was wiretapping and spying on you in the 90's, people would say you're paranoid and might put you away. If you say it today, the response is, "Duh, who cares?" It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Internationally it is i need to start a war to prevent war.
Welcome to the extreme left, then. Because at least in the US, this is something that has near universal agreement across both major parties and nearly every politician.
If the use of force alone was enough, the Nazis never would've come to power. There were plenty of people willing to face them in the streets and match their violence, far more than there are in the US today.
But it's obvious that you just want to exchange snipes and have zero interest in actually learning anything from history, so you will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Even when the fascists are at your doorstep, you'll still be punching left, and demanding everyone follow incoherent and dysfunctional ideas because you can't be assed to read theory, study history, or engage with anyone beyond snipes and memes.
At this point I'm genuinely confused why you asked the question in the first place. What answer were you looking for? Because last I checked the Allies, who collectively stopped the fascists, were an alliance between state entities. Specifically, between capitalist states and the USSR. But you "don't like" either of those, even when they're fighting the Nazis!
Why would you ask a rhetorical question to lead people to an answer you disagree with? Christ, the brainworms are beyond my ability to detangle.
Primaries aren't even required to be fair elections. The party can pull whatever shenanigans it wants, and there's nothing any of us can do about it so long as third parties are ruled out.
If the democrats decided to straight up go back to the days of deciding nominees in smoke-filled rooms with no primary process at all, then would you still say we need to vote for them unconditionally as the lesser evil? Is there any breaking point at all where you'll reject that approach?
Because if so, then I am simply already past that point. And if not, then you seem utterly hopeless to me. They can keep moving further and further right, removing any possibility for you to do anything about it, and you'll keep supporting them unconditionally. I consider that a ridiculous position and it's even more ridiculous to think the general public would accept that.