My thinking is that we need to draw a clear path from "our collective labor is our best political tool" to specific solutions for climate change, police violence, imperialism, etc. Because that is not clear at all right now, especially to anyone who's not already on this (or a similar) forum. The concept is good, but we can't just leave it at that. "Healthcare is a human right" is a good concept, but it's not as useful of an organizing tool as "here's a proposal for how Medicare for All would work, and here's what we need to do to pass it."
Medicare For All is already pretty easy to understand. Like, it's a well detailed law, wrote to fit in the fucking US system which is the worst case scenario.
Exactly! If someone only talks about the failures of U.S. healthcare, it's easy to write them off because they're not actually proposing a solution. Even "healthcare is a human right" isn't really a solution -- it doesn't tell you how you would deliver healthcare for everyone. It's just a statement of what should be. If this is all we're offering, people aren't going to see that as a realistic way to accomplish anything.
But Medicare for All? That's an actual bill, it expands something we already have, and we know how to pass bills and expand existing programs. It's concrete enough for people to get invested in and take seriously.
I'm saying it's not enough to criticize electoralism (in the way it's not enough to criticize existing U.S. healthcare). We need to present a concrete, realistic alternative (the way M4A is a concrete, realistic alternative to what we have now).
Cut the military. Retrain redundant soldiers to the building trades and use them and the money no longer spent on bombs and murder robots to build energy-efficient social housing.
My thinking is that we need to draw a clear path from "our collective labor is our best political tool" to specific solutions for climate change, police violence, imperialism, etc. Because that is not clear at all right now, especially to anyone who's not already on this (or a similar) forum. The concept is good, but we can't just leave it at that. "Healthcare is a human right" is a good concept, but it's not as useful of an organizing tool as "here's a proposal for how Medicare for All would work, and here's what we need to do to pass it."
Medicare For All is already pretty easy to understand. Like, it's a well detailed law, wrote to fit in the fucking US system which is the worst case scenario.
Exactly! If someone only talks about the failures of U.S. healthcare, it's easy to write them off because they're not actually proposing a solution. Even "healthcare is a human right" isn't really a solution -- it doesn't tell you how you would deliver healthcare for everyone. It's just a statement of what should be. If this is all we're offering, people aren't going to see that as a realistic way to accomplish anything.
But Medicare for All? That's an actual bill, it expands something we already have, and we know how to pass bills and expand existing programs. It's concrete enough for people to get invested in and take seriously.
I'm saying it's not enough to criticize electoralism (in the way it's not enough to criticize existing U.S. healthcare). We need to present a concrete, realistic alternative (the way M4A is a concrete, realistic alternative to what we have now).
Cut the military. Retrain redundant soldiers to the building trades and use them and the money no longer spent on bombs and murder robots to build energy-efficient social housing.