yes, thankfully what we do not need is new ID politics........ what we need is people on same page, common sense, I see that as a key way to reconquer the political space for working people..... all working people, gig workers, small businesses, underpaid workers, exploited ones, basically whoever is against status quo. The hardest part is finding ways to connect humanely, without technology then things can develop from there, principles and pragmatism; instead of laptop class dogmatics and other drama approaches, which focus on virtue signaling.
Deb and I have discussed this quite a bit. Where we live, the Left is a bad joke. At every critical junction, they've been foot soldiers for corporate looting and the government's constant, sanctimonious , neofascist control freaking. When issues are less immediate, i.e. further away, they'll mouth some empty principles. The rest of the time, they're having fratricidal status panics. What can anyone accomplish with shitheels like that? We concluded that anything we do, ourselves, had best be done on a small scale and needs to address the pre-political. Mickey, your own efforts are exemplary in this. They look like a way forward.
Thanks, James. It's beyond frustrating that the loudest sectors of the so-called left have ruined this word/approach. But it did inspire me to switch from virtue signaling to direct relief. (Although many on the "left" see my efforts as "only" addressing symptoms.)
And, for the record, it's not like I didn't engage in direct relief (outside of "activism") throughout my life. I've just come to make it more of a mission!
They have an arsenal of time-wasting rhetorical tricks... It's instructive that the clever rhetoricians do nothing towards building a compassionate society. I don't know if consistent kindnesses will do anything on a large scale in the long run. I don't know whether helping people with small efforts at self-reliance is a solid answer. I do know, however, that it's a waste of time to keep interacting with people who have recapitulated the ugly social relations of capitalism in their own circles.
It's so manipulative and seductive, too. Who doesn't want to be part of some large-scale movement to improve the world? Who doesn't wanna march with thousands of others and declare "we are unstoppable, another world is possible"? But, as you articulately state, most of the folks selling you the "solution" have no intention of doing anything positive.
yes, thankfully what we do not need is new ID politics........ what we need is people on same page, common sense, I see that as a key way to reconquer the political space for working people..... all working people, gig workers, small businesses, underpaid workers, exploited ones, basically whoever is against status quo. The hardest part is finding ways to connect humanely, without technology then things can develop from there, principles and pragmatism; instead of laptop class dogmatics and other drama approaches, which focus on virtue signaling.
Deb and I have discussed this quite a bit. Where we live, the Left is a bad joke. At every critical junction, they've been foot soldiers for corporate looting and the government's constant, sanctimonious , neofascist control freaking. When issues are less immediate, i.e. further away, they'll mouth some empty principles. The rest of the time, they're having fratricidal status panics. What can anyone accomplish with shitheels like that? We concluded that anything we do, ourselves, had best be done on a small scale and needs to address the pre-political. Mickey, your own efforts are exemplary in this. They look like a way forward.
Thanks, James. It's beyond frustrating that the loudest sectors of the so-called left have ruined this word/approach. But it did inspire me to switch from virtue signaling to direct relief. (Although many on the "left" see my efforts as "only" addressing symptoms.)
And, for the record, it's not like I didn't engage in direct relief (outside of "activism") throughout my life. I've just come to make it more of a mission!
They have an arsenal of time-wasting rhetorical tricks... It's instructive that the clever rhetoricians do nothing towards building a compassionate society. I don't know if consistent kindnesses will do anything on a large scale in the long run. I don't know whether helping people with small efforts at self-reliance is a solid answer. I do know, however, that it's a waste of time to keep interacting with people who have recapitulated the ugly social relations of capitalism in their own circles.
It's so manipulative and seductive, too. Who doesn't want to be part of some large-scale movement to improve the world? Who doesn't wanna march with thousands of others and declare "we are unstoppable, another world is possible"? But, as you articulately state, most of the folks selling you the "solution" have no intention of doing anything positive.