Did you just tell lenin that he can't find time to flip a switch once a year and still organize a revolution?
Dude I think we've been tricked into removing all context and making everything binary issues.
Not voting is not the same as organizing.
Voting is not the same as not organizing.
These two ideas have been connected by pop culture to dissuade people from voting AND organizing at the same time. Both are actually pretty easy if we just try to do em.
Voting is the very tale end of a long, expensive, and labor intensive process of GOTV. And GOTV is handicapped by the candidates you're GOTV for.
There was a point at which Organizing for Bernie and Organizing for Union Local 901 were equivalent. But when the top of the ticket is a DLC Democrat, I can't do both anymore. Campaigning for a Democrat puts me in opposition to my local labor organizers and activists, as the person I'm working to elect intends to undermine their efforts.
if we did everything we did for bernie, every election we'd win. but every person tries once or twice and then gives up and they end up changing nothing. Obama was gaslighting, the process doesn't work like that. Saviors aren't real. Workers are real. Lets do real work. Til we fucking die.
Every time I hear these claims, it's two activists grumbling at each other for not working hard enough. It's tiresome and myopic. Quite literally preaching to the choir.
Activism requires a certain degree of enthusiasm. People aren't going to rally behind a cause or a candidate that they don't care about. Whether you want to elevate this rallying point to "Savior" status is merely a point of rhetoric. The real consequence of activism lacking leadership is that it becomes unsustainable. Organizing is hard work and politicians who wet the bed don't inspire their neighbors to break their backs on their behalf.
I completely agree. I just think it actually matters if we're going for "positive influence" or "negative influence". I dont think activism needs leadership, it just needs to be positive. Good ideas spread for free and bad ideas need money and authority behind them.
What if you see a friend after a long shitty day and then have a serious complain about their boss. I think the nature of the algorithm and network architecture of the internet has been rewarding us for responding with:
"ya that's the typical plight of the proletariat"
But in real life you can you can see a massive difference between that statement and this question: "that sucks, I'm sorry your boss is doing that shit. I bet the job doesn't need to be as bad as he's making it. Can i help?"
I think that same difference that we notice when we help someone by just showing kindness and compassion in real life exists on the internet but since we can't see it, it doesn't create the same feedback loop. What if we keep studying finance, economics and history and just make one leap of faith:
Cooperating and helping people is truly rewarding.
Kindness as a pyramid scheme might actually be sustainable lol.
I dont think activism needs leadership, it just needs to be positive.
As someone who has been doing this for a little while, I have to assure you that you need leadership. Individuals with the initiative to make plans, get their friends excited, and then competently execute on them are not a dime a dozen. Striking the right combination of enthusiasm, social ability, and competence is difficult. And being willing to put yourself out there with the expectation that nobody will show up is hard.
I think that same difference that we notice when we help someone by just showing kindness and compassion in real life exists on the internet but since we can’t see it
Being generous to your friends and neighbors is good, but it isn't the seed of a large movement. You ultimately need to willingly participate in a system that affects people outside your perception.
Cooperating and helping people is truly rewarding.
It's rewarding when you experience a pay-off for your efforts. Pissing into the ocean isn't rewarding. Investing labor into an effort that fails isn't rewarding.
One reason I suspect Habitat for Humanity was so successful stemmed from the fact that you literally end up with a house at the end of it. But if a group of friends were to build a house that collapsed at the end of your effort, it would be hard to convince that group to come out a second time. Much less a tenth or a thousandth.
Part of what good leaders bring to the table is the ability to emotionally reward participation. It's a rarer attribute than people give credit for.
Individuals with the initiative to make plans, get their friends excited, and then competently execute on them are not a dime a dozen
I completely agree with this but I actually don't think that means "leader". I take initiative, i get my friends excited and competently execute tasts on their behalf. That doesn't mean I am my friends' 'LEADER'. I'm just helping them because I like them. We keep getting tricked into a top-down authoritarian hierarchy by pop culture because thats how predatory finance is structured and now its the only business model in the world.
What I'm building isn't a business so we don't need the same model. I don't need you to do everything I'm doing and follow my lead if you're doing your own thing towards the same goal. Our messaging needs to be identical but our optics and tactics can be totally different. The entire message is this:
Cooperation > Competition
Do anything where thats the message and you're a part of the movement. Just tweet out 10 things that might make people want to work together instead of fight each other and you're Leftist Steve Bannon. On the left, we can all be the Steve Bannon and none of us have to do coke or take orders from finance oligarchs, we just need to actually come together. If I'm wrong all you did was type a few sentences and click submit but if I'm right, we can change the world. Leftism is actually a no risk, high reward proposition if you do it without being paid.
That's exactly what it means. You're the But-For cause of their participation. You are the perverbal Vanguard.
We keep getting tricked into a top-down authoritarian hierarchy by pop culture because thats how predatory finance is structured and now its the only business model in the world.
Authoritarianism isn't something humans invented in the last generation. And even then, there's a huge difference between taking initiative and taking command. Showing leadership doesn't mean becoming a dictator, it means becoming a rallying point for collective action. And yes, every group has some minority of participants in that role. Some individual that is striking out farther than the herd and guiding them in a given direction.
Cooperation > Competition
Even cooperatives require some level of entrepreneurship. The big distinction between capitalism and communism isn't the absence of authority but the distribution of rewards.
btw im not suggesting you campaign for biden and thats my point. you dont have campaign for him to vote for him. organize for your union as often as you can but one day in november, do this other thing for 20 minutes.
Do you think that you "not voting" is the same as helping disenfranchised black voters ? This isn't a binary issue. Vote for Biden and then lets impeach him for voter suppression. Thats the most optimal strategy for workers rights going forward.
As workers we don't have a carrot or a stick, we have both. Both tools have value but in different context. Social media uses a network architecture that makes hating something and loving it just as valuable but the real world isn't like that. Positive engagement actually leads to more change. That doesn't mean it'll instantly create a utopia but there are only 3 voting strategies that can have a real world effect this cycle:
Voting for Biden
Voting for Trump
Not Voting
Lets game it out and see how those different strategies might actually help. I think Biden is just the most practical move.
Do you think that you “not voting” is the same as helping disenfranchised black voters
I mean i'm literally working with a prison abolitionist group, soi 'm doing more for disenfanchised black people than simply voting. Also nothing disenfranchises people more than to elect someone they don't like and doesn't care about them, or someone who wrote a crime bill who put most of them in prison and literally took away their right to vote. LMFAO did you really just try to use Joe BIDEN as a reason to "help disenfranchised black people" like he didn't fucking cause this problem?
lets impeach him for voter suppression.
LMAO this is not going to happen
[voting ]Thats the most optimal strategy for workers rights going forward
Did you just tell Lenin to engage in incremental electoralism? I think he's got a better plan already, bucko.
Did you just tell lenin that he can't find time to flip a switch once a year and still organize a revolution?
Dude I think we've been tricked into removing all context and making everything binary issues.
Not voting is not the same as organizing.
Voting is not the same as not organizing.
These two ideas have been connected by pop culture to dissuade people from voting AND organizing at the same time. Both are actually pretty easy if we just try to do em.
Voting is the very tale end of a long, expensive, and labor intensive process of GOTV. And GOTV is handicapped by the candidates you're GOTV for.
There was a point at which Organizing for Bernie and Organizing for Union Local 901 were equivalent. But when the top of the ticket is a DLC Democrat, I can't do both anymore. Campaigning for a Democrat puts me in opposition to my local labor organizers and activists, as the person I'm working to elect intends to undermine their efforts.
if we did everything we did for bernie, every election we'd win. but every person tries once or twice and then gives up and they end up changing nothing. Obama was gaslighting, the process doesn't work like that. Saviors aren't real. Workers are real. Lets do real work. Til we fucking die.
I don't know who this "we" is.
Every time I hear these claims, it's two activists grumbling at each other for not working hard enough. It's tiresome and myopic. Quite literally preaching to the choir.
Activism requires a certain degree of enthusiasm. People aren't going to rally behind a cause or a candidate that they don't care about. Whether you want to elevate this rallying point to "Savior" status is merely a point of rhetoric. The real consequence of activism lacking leadership is that it becomes unsustainable. Organizing is hard work and politicians who wet the bed don't inspire their neighbors to break their backs on their behalf.
I completely agree. I just think it actually matters if we're going for "positive influence" or "negative influence". I dont think activism needs leadership, it just needs to be positive. Good ideas spread for free and bad ideas need money and authority behind them.
What if you see a friend after a long shitty day and then have a serious complain about their boss. I think the nature of the algorithm and network architecture of the internet has been rewarding us for responding with:
"ya that's the typical plight of the proletariat"
But in real life you can you can see a massive difference between that statement and this question: "that sucks, I'm sorry your boss is doing that shit. I bet the job doesn't need to be as bad as he's making it. Can i help?"
I think that same difference that we notice when we help someone by just showing kindness and compassion in real life exists on the internet but since we can't see it, it doesn't create the same feedback loop. What if we keep studying finance, economics and history and just make one leap of faith:
Cooperating and helping people is truly rewarding.
Kindness as a pyramid scheme might actually be sustainable lol.
As someone who has been doing this for a little while, I have to assure you that you need leadership. Individuals with the initiative to make plans, get their friends excited, and then competently execute on them are not a dime a dozen. Striking the right combination of enthusiasm, social ability, and competence is difficult. And being willing to put yourself out there with the expectation that nobody will show up is hard.
Being generous to your friends and neighbors is good, but it isn't the seed of a large movement. You ultimately need to willingly participate in a system that affects people outside your perception.
It's rewarding when you experience a pay-off for your efforts. Pissing into the ocean isn't rewarding. Investing labor into an effort that fails isn't rewarding.
One reason I suspect Habitat for Humanity was so successful stemmed from the fact that you literally end up with a house at the end of it. But if a group of friends were to build a house that collapsed at the end of your effort, it would be hard to convince that group to come out a second time. Much less a tenth or a thousandth.
Part of what good leaders bring to the table is the ability to emotionally reward participation. It's a rarer attribute than people give credit for.
I completely agree with this but I actually don't think that means "leader". I take initiative, i get my friends excited and competently execute tasts on their behalf. That doesn't mean I am my friends' 'LEADER'. I'm just helping them because I like them. We keep getting tricked into a top-down authoritarian hierarchy by pop culture because thats how predatory finance is structured and now its the only business model in the world.
What I'm building isn't a business so we don't need the same model. I don't need you to do everything I'm doing and follow my lead if you're doing your own thing towards the same goal. Our messaging needs to be identical but our optics and tactics can be totally different. The entire message is this:
Cooperation > Competition
Do anything where thats the message and you're a part of the movement. Just tweet out 10 things that might make people want to work together instead of fight each other and you're Leftist Steve Bannon. On the left, we can all be the Steve Bannon and none of us have to do coke or take orders from finance oligarchs, we just need to actually come together. If I'm wrong all you did was type a few sentences and click submit but if I'm right, we can change the world. Leftism is actually a no risk, high reward proposition if you do it without being paid.
That's exactly what it means. You're the But-For cause of their participation. You are the perverbal Vanguard.
Authoritarianism isn't something humans invented in the last generation. And even then, there's a huge difference between taking initiative and taking command. Showing leadership doesn't mean becoming a dictator, it means becoming a rallying point for collective action. And yes, every group has some minority of participants in that role. Some individual that is striking out farther than the herd and guiding them in a given direction.
Even cooperatives require some level of entrepreneurship. The big distinction between capitalism and communism isn't the absence of authority but the distribution of rewards.
btw im not suggesting you campaign for biden and thats my point. you dont have campaign for him to vote for him. organize for your union as often as you can but one day in november, do this other thing for 20 minutes.
It's not that easy in most of the US.
especially if you're not white...
Do you think that you "not voting" is the same as helping disenfranchised black voters ? This isn't a binary issue. Vote for Biden and then lets impeach him for voter suppression. Thats the most optimal strategy for workers rights going forward.
As workers we don't have a carrot or a stick, we have both. Both tools have value but in different context. Social media uses a network architecture that makes hating something and loving it just as valuable but the real world isn't like that. Positive engagement actually leads to more change. That doesn't mean it'll instantly create a utopia but there are only 3 voting strategies that can have a real world effect this cycle:
Voting for Biden
Voting for Trump
Not Voting
Lets game it out and see how those different strategies might actually help. I think Biden is just the most practical move.
I mean i'm literally working with a prison abolitionist group, soi 'm doing more for disenfanchised black people than simply voting. Also nothing disenfranchises people more than to elect someone they don't like and doesn't care about them, or someone who wrote a crime bill who put most of them in prison and literally took away their right to vote. LMFAO did you really just try to use Joe BIDEN as a reason to "help disenfranchised black people" like he didn't fucking cause this problem?
LMAO this is not going to happen
The workers rights understander has logged on
Imagine thinking voting is easy lmao