Art of the Deal

A desperate attempt at happiness meal

Good talking yo ya! Sorry if I came in a little hot on my first comment :)

Thanks for responding, reading your other comment, I can see there is likely a lot of agreement. I do tend to harp on "the way we define people in society" because I think it is fundamental to leftist theory of change. Education is prob the largest part of what I've worked on, when compared to other comrades I tend to be very pedagogical rather than political. Def the biggest challenge is getting people out of their heads and thinking critically, about themselves and their conditions, then taking that critical thought and turning it into critical action.

However I've def encountered lots of funny behavior from "leaders" of movements, some especially nasty cases in progressive groups, but even in good leftist groups there can be a very "my way is the right way" emphasis. Fortunately, its basically always possible to struggle for more and better democratic input from members. The way in which we go about it matters, and I've seen that wielded cynically as well, but if an org is truly democratic if people can speak up and share their experiences, it has a balancing, instructing effect on the discourse. And on the other side, bureaucracy is death.

I've also met lots of people who will walk up to us in a protest like "I totally support what you're doing" but if you ask them about their own politics they have a hard time describing it. But the fact that there is so much agreement that "the vibe is off" that it is moving people to action, putting hours lives into situations where we can act and learn. The people who are leaders today were baby leftists in 2020, each iteration we keep creating more and more engagement with socialism and social transformation. Its exciting, but the more these ideas move from idealism to, basically the only way we can protect the people we love and care about, the more there is to do.

Glad you're out here with us!

The only intolerance that the tolerant won't tolerate are those who won't tolerate injustice

The flaw in your logic, is that you are arguing for a kind of essentialism in human beings. You say

The only thing that has a prayer of keeping anything in check is a citizenry that stays aware, mistrusts whatever the government is, understands the cycle, and continuously fights for rights by making it a credible threat that the people WILL revolt unless the leaders do the right thing.

As if these changes in society would not mark a radical difference in the composition and structure of society. You go on to speak to your skepticism that the mechanisms of control exerted over the masses will ever be overcome. And I admit, they are very scary and concerning. But there is no theory of change in what you are describing. The world is made of people, but the people you describe are still an abstraction. You aren't considering how the system that the capitalists are constructing is already changing people. you are assuming that the conditions that the ruling classes are imposing on the masses will work as expected to repress the masses. But their repression changes society. Changed society creates changed people. Changed people change society.

Despite 109 years (since the Balfour declaration) of coordination and action among the ruling class for the creation of a state to destabilize the middle east for resources, and a near global imperialist consensus for the creation and "right to exist" for Israel, support for them has never been lower.

In 2008 the global economy crashed. The culprits were widely known, the whole political and media apparatus justified the bail outs, while the people were against it. Deep recessions hit every sector. It took 4 years to manage a large but individualistic and disorganized protest movement against it. Since then, we have seen many more mass protest movements, George Floyd 2020, Pro Palestine student encampments, and now protests against ICE. Each iteration, more organized, more resilient. The DSA, a group of only about 6000 members from the 80's - 2010s, has now grown to 120k members, the largest socialist org in American history. Its worthy of criticism and is lacking in many crucial areas, for example the labor movement is significantly weaker than it was in the 30's. But in January, the ICE OUT strikes in Minneapolis was a bona fide general strike. It was brief, and doesn't compare to the general strikes of '32 - '34 where the city of Minneapolis was basically taken over by communist teamsters. But its significant and legitimate.

If people aren’t willing to keep fighting for justice and they stay complacent ALL systems trend towards corruption.

I mean this in the most gracious way possible, but this is a bit of a self report. People are willing to keep fighting for social justice, in larger numbers than we've seen in 100 years. Education and awareness is better and more coordinated, organization is better, politics are clearer. There are still major challenges, around race and gender especially, but 4th wave feminism has changed the discourse irreversibly, 2020 protests were the largest and most diverse protests ever, although fairly rational demands like "defund" are getting killed in the discourse, and trans people and gender theory are here to stay. There will be repression, but the more repression they cause, the more people organize against it.

The fact is, the system is not rational, and the people running it are running it based on their own class interests. Those interests are opposed to our interests. Capitalism is the most unstable system ever conceived. In a way, that is how it is able to spread and subsume, it destabilizes old structures and transforms them into racist, imperialist profit motive. But now it is destabilizing itself in its search for profit. The liberal period is over and we are entering a period of direct domination and resistance. As there is more and more to organize against, we will forge the social structures that create the future society.

This is a much better view of history than "the cunning will always rise up." We could use you in helping to ensure that doesn't happen. Democracy, real mass democracy, is the only defense we have. Don't sit on the sidelines and poo poo about doomed preconceptions, your perspectives could help the movement rather than carry water for the imperialists

Looks like he was guilty of the unforgivable crime of Thinking While Black. The fact that the charlatan who made this clearly racist accusation received none of the intense scrutiny and hatred in the media, while this sensational and verifiably false claim against Arday became a major talking point among in the media is a prime example of how racism is not individual prejudice but an intrinsic, structural aspect of society.