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1 point

1 month ago

Uh huh. Are you only able to cooperate with people who agree with you in every way?

We should not cooperate with fascists especially when they don’t believe in climate change. It would be a waste of time since they want to kill us and want to pollute as much as possible.

And yours is going out of its way to manufacture enemies.

My argument didn’t tell the MAGA movement to be fascists. A progressive and socialist populist movement could rally most people without needing for anyone to hate minority groups or disregard scientific consensus.

Again, sure. Not worth fighting over the phrasing.

Good, so you agree then? We should move the Democratic Party to the left. Democrats should champion systemic change and wealth redistribution. edit: typo

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BobQuixote@lemmy.world

1 point

1 month ago

We should not cooperate with fascists especially when they don’t believe in climate change.

Not believing in climate change does not make someone a fascist. Murphy was talking about accepting people who don’t want to be aligned with MAGA. That is plainly a strategic imperative.

I agree that we need to watch out for cryptofascists, but your meter is too sensitive.

Similarly, men’s concerns about loneliness etc. are worth hearing out. I wouldn’t say that has much at all to do with “rights,” though.

Good, so you agree then?

As far as I can tell, yes. I suspect I would be more hands-off about correcting some harms, but I strongly agree with no second class of citizens.

We should move the Democratic Party to the left. Democrats should champion systemic change and wealth redistribution.

I don’t object. I’m an ex-Republican long since committed to riding the Democratic wagon wherever it goes. I would take FDR 2.0 if that’s what can defeat MAGA, but I don’t have confidence that it’s a good approach. I do think the wealth/income gap is a threat to liberty and stability.

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1 point

1 month ago

Not believing in climate change does not make someone a fascist

Weirdly, no where in my argument do I claim this. But if a person isn’t a fascist or isn’t at least brainwashed by their propaganda, why would someone believe climate change is not real? There is a large body of research that demonstrates climate change is real and is caused by humans. Not to mention Exxon knew this as early as 1977.

Murphy was talking about accepting people who don’t want to be aligned with MAGA. That is plainly a strategic imperative.

No he said:

But here’s the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren’t 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.

He didn’t mention the MAGA movement or how aligned with MAGA a person wants to be in that.

your meter is too sensitive.

The time to advert key tipping points in the Earth’s climate is the next five years. Either we advert these tipping points or catastrophic damage will be done to the environment. There’s no time to delay. Let alone time to be actively making things worse by increasing fossil fuel emissions as much as possible. Why is your argument’s meter not picking this up?

I suspect I would be more hands-off about correcting some harms

Sorry, what harms are those? =/

I would take FDR 2.0 if that’s what can defeat MAGA, but I don’t have confidence that it’s a good approach. I do think the wealth/income gap is a threat to liberty and stability.

Billionaires have formed an oligarchy around Trump who is threatening to deport millions of people, round up homeless people into camps, and be a dictator on day one. This state of affairs is directly derived from late-stage capitalism and the 40 years of neo-liberalism that enabled the rich to extract wealth from everyone else.

People want a populist narrative. We can easily give them that since it’s the truth. That’s what the Democrats were lacking in their campaign that Trump used to win, a populist narrative. Democrats spent the months between the DNC and election day appealing to moderate Republicans. Their reward was around 10 million fewer votes. Murphy is another Democrat who refuses to listen and is part of the Democrats predictable shift to the right in response to this loss.

There can be more than one lesson to learn from an election. People do need to learn to leverage power and vote for Democrats in elections, but the Democrats need to learn from their mistakes as well. Or at least be co-opted by people who learned the lessons for them.

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BobQuixote@lemmy.world

1 point

1 month ago

But if a person isn’t a fascist or isn’t at least brainwashed by their propaganda, why would someone believe climate change is not real? There is a large body of research that demonstrates climate change is real and is caused by humans. Not to mention Exxon knew this as early as 1977.

Are you supposing that any scrap of unscientific propaganda in a person’s opinions makes them functionally a fascist? I posit that someone can doubt the science and believe in liberalism. Hell, I think some of the people who voted for Trump still believe in liberalism (not that they would call it that) even as they enable fascism. This descent into madness has been really hard to watch. If any of them were to renounce Trump, I’d welcome them eagerly.

The time to advert key tipping points in the Earth’s climate is the next five years. Either we advert these tipping points or catastrophic damage will be done to the environment. There’s no time to delay. Let alone time to be actively making things worse by increasing fossil fuel emissions as much as possible. Why is your argument’s meter not picking this up?

I think you risk not being able to solve anything because you’re so picky about allies. I think improving climate policy remains possible with a minority of climate deniers in the tent. And if someone opposes Trump I am not terribly concerned about their thoughts on the climate.

Sorry, what harms are those? =/

I don’t know, do you really want to compare comprehensive political positions?

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1 point

1 month ago

Are you supposing that any scrap of unscientific propaganda in a person’s opinions makes them functionally a fascist?

No, that’s why I separated the two in my argument.

I posit that someone can doubt the science and believe in liberalism.

How in good faith does a neoliberal doubt the science? They definitely incorrectly doubt the magnitude of change to our society that is required to fix climate change, sure. But the science itself?

Hell, I think some of the people who voted for Trump still believe in liberalism (not that they would call it that) even as they enable fascism.

Neoliberalism is part of how those people got to fascism. It’s much easier for a fascist to convince people to adopt fascists positions when they already have neoliberal ideas in their head. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems. It’s a smaller jump to convince neoliberals to change the people in society than it is to convince them to change institutions they believe are infallible.

This descent into madness has been really hard to watch.

Yes, but in hindsight it is clear how we got here. Neoliberalism and the right-wing information sphere are two of the major culprits.

If any of them were to renounce Trump, I’d welcome them eagerly.

We don’t get this for free though or by comprising all of our positions. Democrats have been trying to reach across the aisle for a while. They failed in this election in large part because of that continued attempt to reach moderate Republicans. What Democrats need is a populist narrative. This will rally people around our side of the issues.

I think you risk not being able to solve anything because you’re so picky about allies. I think improving climate policy remains possible with a minority of climate deniers in the tent.

Not if we have to comprise our positions to get them in the tent. We need full speed ahead on climate change action. If we have to go the speed we are now, slower, or backwards like we will be in a few months, then that isn’t a useful alliance.

I don’t know, do you really want to compare comprehensive political positions?

I think you’re referring to harm to other living, breathing people. You want to be a part of the big tent? Time to spill the beans on your positions. Whether they’re considered political or otherwise. A bulleted list is fine. edit: typos

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BobQuixote@lemmy.world

1 point

1 month ago

How in good faith does a neoliberal doubt the science? They definitely incorrectly doubt the magnitude of change to our society that is required to fix climate change, sure. But the science itself?

I think they are suspicious of the institution of science and the scientists within it. The replication crisis gives some validity to their concerns. I think political motives are also suspected.

It doesn’t help that these people are by and large not scientists and don’t have the training to read the science. The suspicion is a boulder that is not too difficult for Republican propaganda to tip down the mountain.

How you break through that, I have no idea. And I think basically this same suspicion was turned on the government to produce MAGA.

It’s a smaller jump to convince neoliberals to change the people in society than it is to convince them to change institutions they believe are infallible.

Ha! I don’t think you would easily find anyone to defend the institutions as infallible right now, least of all the trumpers. The Courts, Congress, the Deep State (career workers in the executive branch), it’s all suspect for them. I myself was counting on SCOTUS to hold until it didn’t.

No, I think the slide into fascism has been about lack of trust rather than an overabundance of it. I can imagine getting there the other way too, though.

Not if we have to comprise our positions to get them in the tent. We need full speed ahead on climate change action. If we have to go the speed we are now, slower, or backwards like we will be in a few months, then that isn’t a useful alliance.

I think you are significantly overestimating the pull granted by simply being in the tent.

I think you’re referring to harm to other living, breathing people. You want to be a part of the big tent? Time to spill the beans on your positions. Whether they’re considered political or otherwise. A bulleted list is fine.

How very broad. I didn’t have anything particular in mind. The government exists to mitigate harm, yet I don’t believe in equipping it to solve every conceivable problem because I fear centralized power. I suspect you would more eagerly expand its power.

Several regions of government need to be reformed in order to halt harm primarily to black people. I’m thinking of the prison pipeline and similar.

I support several federal agencies such as the FDA, USDA, EPA. This support is somewhat reluctant; if I could devise an alternative that didn’t accrue power to the federal government I would prefer that.

I support anti-trust. I think multinational corporations are a threat to the individual to rival the government. I think the government is at risk of losing relevance, leaving only the corporations, and this future is a dystopia.

I want to find a way to drain generational wealth without killing the economy. I don’t think democracy can survive an unhindered class of trust-fund babies (nobility in all but name).

I support a “safety net” that allows for the most meager existence - enough to survive and to be employable. I don’t want to spend more than we must on freeloaders, and I don’t want to make this a better deal than being productive is.

Uh, what else? I am adamantly opposed to abolishing money or ownership of real estate. I’m interested in seeing further experimental results from worker co-ops; so far they are not looking advantageous.

I think social media may have ruined education for Generation Z, as if we had given them all really bad drugs. My aversion to government action is making me uncomfortable with what we may need to do.

Your turn.

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https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/

1 point

1 month ago

The replication crisis gives some validity to their concerns.

This hasn’t been an issue for climate science at all. People have done separate studies and come to the same results. In fact Exxon’s models seem to be highly accurate.

It doesn’t help that these people are by and large not scientists and don’t have the training to read the science.

These news articles don’t require scientific training to read, but they contain the results of the research.

These are non-issues.

Ha! I don’t think you would easily find anyone to defend the institutions as infallible right now, least of all the trumpers. The Courts, Congress, the Deep State (career workers in the executive branch), it’s all suspect for them. I myself was counting on SCOTUS to hold until it didn’t.

This is conflating trust in the institutions with trust in the people. I’m sure most people would be happy to change the individuals in charge of the systems. But I doubt those same people would be interested in radically changing those systems.

I think you are significantly overestimating the pull granted by simply being in the tent.

That is putting the cart before the horse. The policies of the tent are created as part of the groups forming the coalition. It’s not an afterthought. Your argument is underestimating the pull of populism in the early 21st century.

Your turn.

The US needs majority rule democracy. Currently US democracy is flawed as it has many institutional issues that lead to minority rule. The electoral college and our first-past-the-post voting system are two culprits. But also things like the House being capped at 435 seats, the filibuster in the Senate, the fact each state gets two Senate seats. The Supreme Court justices need an enforceable ethics code, term limits, and should be selected by popular vote.

The US needs socialism. We need a welfare state for the people who fall through the cracks. It’s too easy for businesses to fire the poorest customers on essential services like housing, even when a person works multiple jobs. We need to regulate businesses to prevent conflict of interests, malpractice, and oligopolies. We need to have a wealth tax on billionaires and millionaires to reinject the wealth that is not larger circulating in the economy.

We need to redirect the owner class’ source of wealth. The workers need to own the means of production. Which means workers need to own an equal portion of the corporations they work for in the form of non-tradable stocks or bonds. The workers need to receive regular payouts at least quarterly in the form of dividends or interest respectively. And those corporations need to be run like democracies in a way that reflects the number of people working there for things like choosing the C-Suite and company values.

The goal is to eliminate a class of people, not the individuals themselves. As long as the owner class exists, they are incentivized to overturn our democracy. Even now we are seeing an oligarchy of billionaires forming around Trump as a dictator.

Also, corporations are not people and we should get private money out of elections.

I am adamantly opposed to abolishing money or ownership of real estate.

I mean if we could get rid of those while keeping all the benefits the technologies give us that would be pretty cool right? I see a stateless society like that as an ideal to strive for by removing unnecessary or theoretically redundant layers of hierarchy in our society. I’m a social democrat. Some people would say I’ve taken from market socialism, but it’s not my fault if they only have one idea.

I suspect you would more eagerly expand its power.

The US is a federal presidential constitutional republic. I’m fine with federalism as long states’ rights are about governmental separation of concerns. When states’ rights become states have the right to be a dictatorship where people have no rights, that is where I have a problem.

I support several federal agencies such as the FDA, USDA, EPA. This support is somewhat reluctant; if I could devise an alternative that didn’t accrue power to the federal government I would prefer that.

I would like to see a radical change with how we fund government agencies. We should get rid of the debt ceiling. Congress will still need to budget for the year. But if agencies need additional funding they should be able to pull from Congress who could choose to approve or deny funding as needed. Like a US military model of pulling resources as opposed to a Soviet military model of pushing resources. Government agencies shouldn’t be in a position where they aren’t fully funded or think they won’t be fully funded if they don’t use all of the allotted funding. But there should be transparency to the process of funding.

Single payer health care, free college tuition, decomodify housing, public drinking fountains.

Defunding the police by having them focus on solving crime and giving the excess funding to agencies that specialize in jobs we don’t want police doing like mental health or animal control, etc. Cops shouldn’t be making wellness checks on patients or wasting their time catching stray dogs.

I think social media may have ruined education for Generation Z, as if we had given them all really bad drugs. My aversion to government action is making me uncomfortable with what we may need to do.

I recommend talking to people from this generation. The people I have met in person are all well adjusted people.

We will need a massive and sustained cult deprogramming effort for people who have been watching Fox News for nearly three decades. The alternative is continued political unrest and domestic terrorism even if we manage to educate the rest of the population out of neoliberalism and fascism.

Based on what you wrote I’m going to guess that the cult deprogramming position is going to be the most disagreeable with you. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. It is based on my own interactions with people who have uncritically consumed right-wing media for too long while trapped in an information silo.

Outside of defending ourselves, violence is our least useful tool. It seems like your account is new, but people have multiple accounts. This take is probably on the milder side here on Lemmy. You’re likely to come across people and communities that are prone to fed posting, if you haven’t already.

I firmly believe we can educate the population out of this problem and that education is the long term solution to fascism. There are a lot of people on here who do not feel that way. Regardless I believe the big tent can include all people on the left and even neoliberals and neocons who are willing to learn.

Tankies are red fascists, authoritarian communists, and I wouldn’t include them anymore than I would include fascists. Both red fascism and fascism are far right ideologies. Hexbear and Lemmygrad are the two main culprits. With a few notable and welcome exceptions I suspect the majority of users on .ml are tankies.

Thanks for sharing your views.

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