As the Republicans are harming those who are LGBTQ+, and take away the rights of women, and actively killing us with a virus they refuse to try to mitigate… how much more of this bullying are we going to take? I’m not talking about physical actions, but as far as I know, there’s absolutely no plan at all to remedy the situation. The environment can’t wait for politicians to do the right thing. These problems need to be addressed soon, if not yesterday… but everyone, (myself included,) shrugs when questioned on what to do about it.
I’m fucking terrified of the future, I’m afraid to bring the future up here! I worry some know-it-all Doper will state a devastating fact about the problems we face down the line. I don’t know what the right course of action is…
They are ruining this world and the lives within it… when will enough be enough? When will Biden stop calling McConnell his friend?
Sometimes I feel like we’re being baited into a trap.
That makes me want to work w/i the system… because the system has it’s springs stretched taught and I don’t want to be under the metal jaws when they spring shut.
I’ve been saying our number one priority should be locking in voting rights.
The right wing minority is only able to get away with its crimes because it is able to block the majority of us from power. If we had a real democracy, George W. Bush and Donald Trump would not have been President. And people like Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis would not hold office.
Republicans know this. That’s why suppressing voting has been their second highest priority (right after tax breaks for the rich),
Agree. The Republicans cannot win in many purple areas on votes alone, so they gotta rejigger things to their advantage while they are still in power. But, keep in mind most of the country is solid Blue or Red, so such efforts are focused in areas where either party has a marginal lead, and those areas get most of the attention and news coverage. (I mentioned in another thread, to reduce stress and enjoy life more, turn off the news).
Also keep in mind the Republicans are always on the wrong side of history (women’s suffrage, racial segregation, marriage equality, safety standards on cars, reproductive rights, etc., etc…). It may seem like they are winning battles here and there, but they are losing the culture war long-term. LGBTQ rights will come about in the next few years and all these asinine restrictive laws states are passing will be wiped away.
I also agree voting rights should be THE big thing right now. And yes, Democratic leadership should be doing more, a lot more, on this one.
Also keep in mind Conservatives cried and howled as much as anyone over Bill Clinton, Obama, and Biden beating their guy, but they survived those Presidencies as well as we all did with Bush the Lesser and Trump in charge (alarming as 2016-2020 was). Just keep advocating for the things that are important to you, stay active, and be willing to talk to people genuinely about your positions. Things will come around the way they should, but it takes time (and effort).
We need to stop acting like both sides are the same. Democrats aren’t perfect but Republicans are objectively far worse. Ninety percent of the political problems in this country are caused by Republicans. We fix that and then we can start worrying about the remaining ten percent.
I feel this is an artifact of the system that has been rigged up to benefit conservatives. All states are purple; Utah and Texas have liberals and Massachusetts and New York have conservatives. But we’ve got this archaic system of treating states as monolithic blocs. One side or the other wins 51% of the votes and suddenly that state is 100% red or blue. This has made voting suppression more powerful because you only have to move the dividing line a few percentage points to win that narrow majority and then you’ve eliminated the rest of the voters. If you can keep ten thousand people from voting, you’ve just made a million people who did vote disappear from the results.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, wihtout a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject
— John Stuart Mill
Beyond that “inspiring” quote I have nothing. Progress has always been an uphill battle but the shitburners have really taken over in recent years and are spewing fear, uncertainty, and doubt with all of the effectiveness of a fast food advertising campaign to get people to eat more garbage. I don’t know what kind of “strike” you are proposing but unless it literally shuts of the lights it will pass without much notice. (Remember #Occupy NOW! Oh, yeah, the weirdos named after condiments that Stephen Colbert mocked because they couldn’t express a coherent purpose of their movement.) Ditto for “opting out of science”; Conservatives are just fine with any science that doesn’t contradict their deeply held prejudices, and support the ‘science’ that reinforces them. (And for what it is worth, many ‘liberals’ aren’t very excited about science, either, when it doesn’t serve their ends.)
That ‘relative difference’ is part of the problem. When your choices are the Shit Party and Shit Lite Party, it doesn’t really seem like that much of a choice so why not vote for the clown that insults people and says wacky things about nuking France? The Democratic Party may not have fallen into the depths of depravity as the GOP but they have fostered many of the current problems through their support of corporatocracy and craven indifference, with Bill Clinton being more right of center than Richard Nixon and even Barack Obama essentially an Eisenhower Republican. That Biden even suggesting that maybe we should be spending some measurable portion of the discretionary budget on things like education, research, and rebuilding and modernizing the infrastructure that is what allowed the United States to become the industrial leader of the world is viewed as some kind of radical progressivist conspiracy says volumes about the problem with a political rhetoric between two parties that don’t actually have a lot of practical distinctions from a policy standpoint even if they make great merriment about their ‘values’ differences.
I would not say I am optimistic, but maybe realistic. It’s easy to get all worked-up over things and lose perspective. Not to say specific things are under threat and not to minimize the importance of those things, but objectively, things could be much, much worse. And if you take a break from news you will get a better perspective.
If a problem can be solved, there is nothing to worry about. If a problem cannot be solved, then worrying will do no good.
I was was just throwing up shit in the air when i suggested some sort of strike and just kidding about the tech block bill. Do you have any suggestions?
Saying a problem can be solved is not the same as saying a problem will be solved. What excuse do we have for not making the effort to fix something that can be fixed?
What effort do you suggest we all do? We’re sitting here at our keyboards at our cozy homes. I live in a very Blue state - should I call my congress critter and tell them how I want them to vote or to get off their ass and get going on voting rights? Will that make a difference? Or should we storm the statehouse and make demands? How is an individual supposed make an effort to fix something like that?
Like any insurmountable problem, you tackle it one small step at a time. Do what you can to make the world better; you don’t have to solve everything everywhere forever. Don’t begrudge others for not doing as much as you. Encourage and help them. And then encourage and help those doing more than you.