I’m just so frustrated with some leftists on here, it’s like y’all just want to perpetually lose, because then you can just toss shit at everyone else with no repercussions.
You want to shit all of our opportunity to actually shift the mainstream of American politics to the left for first time in almost half a century because, what, it isn’t black and white enough for you? It’s ridiculous. I know incrementalism is a dirty word on the left, but the right figured out that they can push things in their favor over time, AND IT WORKED, so why can’t we?
Y’all really think we can build a mass movement in a society where the overton window is shifted so much that Eisenhower would be considered a fringe leftist? That we can have a revolution when the average worker is scared of even the word socialism?
Like, yeah, no shit AOC and Bernie aren’t these hard-left vanguards of the glorious revolution, so what? They aren’t supposed to be. They’re not above criticism or scepticism (no one is), but we really need to stop eating each other alive and actually build something that can actually idk help people on a large scale for once in a long damn time.
Y’all can’t see the value in moving the mainstream Left position from “some deportations are bad, but most are good” Obama/Clinton days to “most deportations are bad, but some are good”? That there isn’t value in countering right-wing scaremongering about how even a mild social safety net will turn us into North Korea with something even reasonably left-wing as a positive in people’s minds?
Most of y’all don’t even have a viable set of praxis, you’d rather just sit behind a screen and throw stones all day, and I’m just getting tired of throwing stones while people starve. I get that some of y’all are accelerationist, but I’m not talking to you (because I don’t have time for edgy bullshit that’ll get millions if not billions harmed), so why not at least try to move things into our favor?
“If anarchists, as a rule, don’t vote – or at least don’t go in for
all the wasted energy and fruitless illusion of electoral politics –
then what do we do? Are we, as those who earnestly see voting as a
social duty might suggest with a condescending chuckle, just sitting
around waiting for the revolution?
Bluntly, no.
This false dichotomy is ever present. You can either sit around
waiting for the revolution, with a V for Vendetta mask or Les Miserablés
soundtrack ready according to taste, or you can suck it up and vote. An
X in a box or the heads of the bourgeoisie on pikes – there is no
in-between.
Aside from being transparent nonsense, this line of non-thought
ignores the main reasons that people consciously reject voting in the
first place. That is, that voting on the individuals who run the state
doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the state itself and that social change doesn’t come from the ballot box but as a result of organisation and struggle.
Anarchists are revolutionaries. That much is apparent from the fact
that existing capitalist society cannot be incrementally reformed into
anarchist communism. But revolution isn’t a “moment,” something that
happens out of the blue and has a definite start and end point. Societal
upheaval isn’t like baking a cake – there’s no set recipe and no
pre-determined length of time in the oven which guarantees success.
Even aside from this, improvements in our present conditions come
overwhelmingly from extra-parliamentary activity. Sure, it’s the
politicians who enshrine our victories in law, but not because we voted
for them. They do it because our strength as an organised movement made
that the least disruptive option available.
In the workplace we win, advance and defend our pay and conditions by
forming unions and pitting our collective strength against the bosses.
A powerful, militant campaign by workers at Ritzy Cinemas last year forced bosses to pay the London Living Wage. Cleaners at the Royal Opera House scored a similar victory
with their own campaign of action. Both of these results, as well as
improving the lot of the workers directly involved, has also served as
an inspiration to other workers to advance similar demands.
But, of course, this doesn’t mean you can vote for the living wage –
it means that as we win by exercising our class power, those managing or
seeking to manage the state will try to divert any possible momentum
from these wins towards electoral politics. The fact remains that the
impetus for this change grows with the victories won through direct
action, and wanes when the pressure that creates goes away.
These are a few, recent examples. The point is that where people
organise and take action together they can resist attacks, win
improvements, and force change.
While the #NoVoteNoVoice position is that not voting lets politicians
off the hook, in fact it is defining politics as something external
which happens in parliament that lets the state off the hook. If we want
change, we need to organise – to build a movement which can resist
attacks on our rights and conditions and fight for positive
improvements.
By organising and taking direct action, we can win improvements
ranging from extra benefits at work to the passing of beneficial laws.
More than that, by organising and building a movement on such a basis,
we build the consciousness and the confidence of the class in its own
power. This is a necessity if we are to take seriously the idea of
revolutionary change.
At the moment, that movement
is embryonic. It needs to grow, and it needs to be acknowledged that
electoralism isn’t an accompaniment to that but a competitor for time
and resources.”
I think you’re misstating my argument for your own purposes.
I’m not saying entirely ignore direct action and mass organizing, I’m not even saying electoral politics should be our main focus or even that you have to go in and mark an x in a box, I’m saying don’t actively sabitoge people who will be useful to us in achieving by making the political climate more amenable to the Left. Doesn’t sap just as much if not more energy from mass organizing? From the Revolution? How does doing this help the cause?
What good are labor gains when a neo-liberal or conservative governor or legislature can come in and strip it all away with a pen stroke? You really think we can build a mass movement in the current climate we have right now? In some states even the most mild Unions are considered poison, almost terroristic, because the decision to cede electoral power to the Right.
Look at what happened to Wisconsin. Wisconsin used to be a haven for the labor movement in the US, and now it’s tetering on the edge of a full blown right-to-work and all of labor’s achievements gutted with Unions having almost no power in the state, all because electoral politics were ceded to the Right.
I’m not saying it’s one or the other, I’m saying stop sabitoging any attempt pushing the climate, because we’re going to be able to build shit after 4 decades of hard-right Neoliberalism.
They’re hiring people at Pre-apprentice level here for jobs like steelworker, welder, machinist, carpenter, and various other jobs in the “vocational” fields.
All these blue collar jobs prove have sneered at are in demand and pay well because there’s so little new blood and the old hands are aging out and enjoying a comfortable retirement.
if I don’t succeed in law, I know what I’m doing.
I’m a fast learner and have good hands.
My dad’s been fighting with the local public schools for years about the way they degrade vocational fields, and he’s also been working with the local vocational school for a very long time, allowing the welding students to come into the shop during training and sometimes hiring them when they graduate.
Mike Rowe has been advocating for blue collar workers for years. He has a foundation set up to help spread awareness and connect people with training programs, and he’s gone before Congress pleading the importance of these jobs.
This is important work. These are the jobs that keep our society running. And they are in desperate need of more hands.
Degrees suffer inflation and vocations suffer underemployment. Boosting the amount of people going vocational will also help those with degrees because it can fight that inflation.
Instead of “these job fields have too many open spots while these have so many applicants you now need a Master’s for stuff that used to take a Bachelor’s” it could be an actually healthy job market.
I know so many people with useless degrees and a shit ton of student loan debt and now there are signs up everywhere just begging people to become electricians and I’m so pissed off.
any time someone brings this up all i can think of is how many of these places
A- are advertizing they need people with 5 year experinence but will pay 8 an hour
B- have decided that instead of actually hiring anyone will have a continual rotation of people from staffing agencies and let them go after 3 months to avoid giving benefits
C- they pay 14 an hour yet mysteriously most employees quit in under five months due to either the danger of the job, the insane demand/difficulty of the job, or an actively hostile workplace
D- tie your earnings to completely unreasonable demands specifically so they can claim compedetive pay but not have to deliver on it as you are penalized as a worker for failing to meet impossible goals
ive worked at all of those, ive nearly lost both my index fingers, my left foot, and my left eye- which is why i wanted out of ‘tool and die’ shops
a big part of blue collar jobs going unfilled is the fault of the blue collar industry being abusive, taking advantage of its workers, and feigning ignorance as to why people are afraid to risk their limbs for the same income as a gas station attendant.
by all means tear down the assumption that a blue collar job cant be good, fulfilling, useful to society, or a bad career move. however after tearing down that assumption you have to also fix the environment of abused workers who wished they had taken a different career path instead of what they just spent 30 years wasting their life on to end up living in a shitty home unable to pursue any dreams that dont involve beer
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “Nearly 1 in 10 men in the United States has experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner and reported at least one measured impact related to experiencing these or other forms of violent behavior in the relationship” and while most offenders of that are “predominantly male perpetrators” it doesn’t mean women can’t do it themselves. Especially when they have grown up being heavily sexualized and believe it to be “normal” behavior.
A study focusing on the way that female sexual assault perps are treated notes that:
“Female perpetration is downplayed among professionals in mental health, social work, public health, and law, with harmful results for male and female victims, in part due to these “stereotypical understandings of women as sexually harmless,” even as ongoing “heterosexism can render lesbian and bisexual victims of female-perpetrated sexual victimization invisible to professionals.”
Studies have also shown that when men are abused by female predators, they are less likely to report it, because “male victims may experience pressure to interpret sexual victimization by women in a way more consistent with masculinity ideals, such as the idea that men should relish any available opportunity for sex.”
None of this erases the fact that we have issues with men in authority abusing women, but feminism is not supposed to be about ignoring the problematic and awful things women in power do. Asia Argento and Avital Ronell do not undermine #MeToo—they stand as a reminder of the work that needs to be done, and a sign of progress that men now feel like they can come forward about sexual abuse no matter who perpetrated it.
I’ve talked about this before, but our elementary school was the only one before I hit college which even had machines on the wall. Those machines may or may not have ever been filled since they were installed in like 1970, but that’s still better than I can say for any other public K-12 I went to.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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