Ha, appreciate the targeted advice. I say too much on here lol! I run an extremely wide spectrum of friends and associates/relationships I think I have the most questions about what you refer to as WASP, but I think is more broad, because I GET lower income ideologies, and I think I probably aspire to higher income/class ones, but it's the like upper middle/higher ones that I am mostly in, but having had vastly different life experiences, I can understand less.
Maurice Mitchell's viral essay on what progressive organizations have been getting wrong
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Ha, appreciate the targeted advice. I say too much on here lol! I run an extremely wide spectrum of friends and associates/relationships I think I have the most questions about what you refer to as WASP, but I think is more broad, because I GET lower income ideologies, and I think I probably aspire to higher income/class ones, but it's the like upper middle/higher ones that I am mostly in, but having had vastly different life experiences, I can understand less.
NZA
LOL
i think if you leave some people behind, the condition they are in can point to where you will end up eventually. white america tolerated an uneven new deal which exploded income inequality along racial lines. now that america swung back in a rightwing direction economically, whites who grew up as middle class children are downwardly mobile adult incels. i think completely abandoning LGBT issues is a shortsighted tactic that may harm others later (probably women's rights).
MLK had the ear of the DNC but was a lot more socialist than he let on, and had a gay speech writer at a time when a reverend even associating with someone like that would be scandalous. he didnt really make them the center of the movement, but he did enough work to articulate a worldview that was appealing to so many groups that the march on washington was extremely diverse for that time. i think there is something there worth studying when it comes to building real powerful and diverse movements. he got killed shortly after making more foreign policy statements in solidarity with the global south, so it is safe to assume that coalition building outside of a white/black dynamic was a thing he would advocate continuing, even though it invites more controversy and enemies.
i do think, however, that proportionality and tactics need to be considered. some of the identity stuff i see is silly, but it isnt just from the LGBT community. identity politics have also made some black folk easier to exploit and prone to working against their own material interest in the service of symbolism.
the "base" is something to consider for electoral politics, but not all political acts are electoral. there was a time when "the base" would be pro slavery or against women voting. there are ways to push beyond what the base wants for marginal people. this is complicated and requires brilliant leadership or people willing to die for a cause. but either way, you cannot let the base determine everything; you will never make progress. also, if you win office, you need pressure and political will to actually use the office for black folk. if not, then it is a waste in the short term and will increase political nihilism or extremism in the long term.
I totally get it.
But if you listen to The Majority Report daily, as I do, you'll see even Sam/Emma's calls are starting to push back on their centering of trans issues so much.
Even The Young Turks is doing more copaganda content and even pushing back against progressive activists for being too cringeworthy.
Progressives are trying to assess their access to the ballot and balance it with expanding their movement.
This is precisely why I knew that Bernie movement was full of shyt even when black democrats were telling people progressives couldn't be trusted. This is proof their instincts were correct.
Even Symone Sanders called out the bernie bros for this very fact.
yeah cause they were all killed
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
I think everyone should aspire to be in higher income levels.
I just made a joke about The NY Times and the like. That paper is penthouse in Manhattan or San Francisco and doesn’t know what’s going on at ground levels. you tend to refer to them a lot.
I think so many things are happening currently along with genuine mental health issues and it’s leading to these generational clashes and socioeconomic clashes. A working class white man—not the fake ones with five trucks for their profitable construction business and acts like Toby Keith, I mean the people that white man employed or working a garbage job—may agree with leftist causes but may not know the correct language. That man should be educated, not cancelled. We too quickly cancel them Or judge them by their cover.
I use them because that man is the best way to create progressive change in this nation and has been throughout history. There isnt a Black people, Women only, Asian people only, LGBTQ only movement, etc.
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they're terminally online
honestly, Biden's win blew up the progressive theory-of-the-case because he's basically more effective than Bernie would have ever been and frankly bernie would have lost the run-offs that helped Democrats in the house and senate since 2020.
Twitter is not real life.
This, is ironically why black democrats are NOT the same as white progressive neo-socialist types.
These white progressives got more money on par than their black counterparts then wanna talk down on black entrepreneurship but also ignore that black voters also support socially liberal economic policies more than MOST white voters (who vote republican) actually do. But they equate this to black voters being conservative.
its a complete mis-read of black voters.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
This is something that’s been lost since the Civil Rights movement ended. change doesn’t happen due to a benevolent government and ruling class. Thats never happened anywhere, let alone America. That people work has been lost over time in order to prop up the great man theory and the propaganda That our government is always moving forward. You have to make the status quo untenable through none electoral means. thinking only electorally leads to the bullshyt and all the crisis happening today while their is no “political will” to fix it.
Americans don’t understand that the 40 hour work week wasn’t created through only voting Hard.
The idea that the Times isn't worth reading because of "elitism" to me is just bizarre
Acquiring knowledge and taste, and culture is in some ways an elitist past time, or privilege. Very few "working class" people are going to have the space, mentally or otherwise to read a 10,000 word story about a Mexican general accused of drug trafficking. Or OP ED's about Weinstein's trial, and prejudice of the jury to prior bad acts, which I read this morning, written by a multi millionaire who ran for DA in NY. But to say those things aren't worth knowing or useless?
Agree /understand with the other points.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
The times is a paper for the ruling class and positions their content for that. Even when they were on their anti trump steez, the majority of the ruling class wasn’t happy with Trump. I feel that way about WaPo and other papers of that ilk.
I don’t take most of their writers discussion on how to organize and lower class interests with any seriousness because they write for the elite and those who aspire to be in the elite. Not the point of this convo though so let’s move on.
That’s my view, you can disagree of you want.
NZA
LOL
trans people are a very small part of the population, so i can understand not wanting to die on a trans hill politically. still, i think it best to make sure a coalition of people wanting to make society better leaves space for them. at the very least, do not actively harm them legally or join in on right wing demonization with all this "grooming" talk that is happening. on the flipside, trans activists need to be able to not blow up a well-meaning coalition over small real or perceived slights.
bernie and his voters are terrible people. will saying that aloud free us to start focusing on actually making society better for all? these people have done nothing but lose real power and recede in visibility. what are we still talking about and why? bernie bros arent even the ones pushing for trans issues - the DNC is actually teaching voters that identity is the end-all of politics. bernie bros are materialist in their analysis. nothing in society today is dictated or even influenced by bernie bros. the alt right and a coalition of liberals and neocons are actually moving or stopping the needle. where is the culpability for the mess we have today?
This is the same mentality that had people promoting this Bertrand Cooper guy...who is also paid by right wing publications to talk about there being no "non-elites writing about black culture"...its the same navel gazing about there being some black upper class. Progressives still dont get the black economic voting base yet. they equate black "upper class" with white upper class....it's NOT the same. Plus, black upper class is merely still just higher income EMPLOYMENT...theres no power no matter what sort of shyt you see on IG.
I ain't forget people trying to push this bullshyt
There's fascinating pieces on there, that have nothing to do with politics, book reviews, movie reviews, travel diaries, investigative journalism, stories about the Transyvania Alps, all kinds of weird and cool shyt. Not reading because of elitism, to me, is like not reading because of a "liberal bias", there's so much to learn.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
my post said this specifically:
I don’t have an issue with the Times or WaPo on the topics you listed. That can be elitist babble, but it’s mostly harmless.
I care when they talk politics, economy and societal issues because that is dangerous, imo.
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I think life exposure is a lot more stressful. I wouldn't primarily place it on the fact of global existential crises, because we've always had those. But young people today are far more connected to the crises on a daily or even minute-to-minute level. Back in the day 95% of your life was in your hood, and for the majority of the population that wasn't causing massive stress levels on a daily basis.
Nowadays, young people are constantly worried about Covid, Trump, Ukraine, global warming, rising fascism, rising awareness of sexual assault, police killings of black people, destruction of the Amazon, economic manipulation by the rich, and every other big public issue. The news cycle is 24/7, social media is omnipresent, they can't get away from any of it. It's dominating their thoughts all the time. That's an awful way to grow up. How can any one child carry the weight of the world and constantly have on their heart any bad shyt that happens to any of the 8 billion people on the planet?
Paradoxically, I think to an extent that while our youths are overexposed to the weight of the world, we've also been building them up with less resilience. Since the 1980s or so parents have been afraid to let kids play outside without adults controlling the atmosphere. They've been afraid to let kids just disappear for the day and come back with adventures they discovered on their own. Adults hover a lot more, kids get the chance to work out their own issues a lot less. Kids spend more time indoors, more time in supervised activity, more time in a controlled environment. And the result is that we've got a lot of children growing up and coming to college who don't know how to handle shyt when life doesn't go perfectly and no one is in control.
Finally, I think social media has been a horrible influence. It rewards people who seek attention, catastrophize their issues (which is a DSMV symptom of several disorders), and project their problems onto the outside world. There's no social media reward for "I'll keep this to myself" or "I can handle this on my own", and there's not much of a reward for "I should fix what I can control rather than externalizing my problems onto the outside world." Even when people say those things on social media, the very fact that they're saying them rather than keeping it to themselves shows a need to look for attention and affirmation, and are followed by all sorts of comments that reinforce the exact opposite of the claim.
For me those are the three dominant strands that have led to kids growing up dysfunctionally.
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