Ideologists, fighting to the last worker
I'm close to giving up on them completely, but I'm not quite there yet. That point will come when they find this post (and Friday's) and launch into their canned lectures about why I'm wrong without bothering to seriously consider or assimilate what I've said. They have the blind, immovable conviction of their own righteousness that comes with total commitment to a cause and to a set of beliefs. My standpoint is that of a sickly, exhausted, frightened old guy just hoping to avoid the final shove into the abyss for a bit longer. It's not a perspective they find worth truly listening to, and I'm about ready to give up on being heard.
posted by Infidel753 at 4:19 PM
8 Comments:
Stay vocal, Infidel. I was in the "Tar and feather Schumer!" camp until I read your insight - you changed my mind. I am pretty sure I am not the only one.
Sadly, though, Shumer still has to go. He's lost his step and is more or less become ineffective as a Minority leader. The Dems should have made broad-stroke public rebukes of the CR from the moment the GOP crapped out the current version and placed the bullseye firmly on their backs, and more importantly what is actually IN the CR that will inflict pain. Instead we the GOP squawking on every outlet that if it FAILS, the DEMOCRATS are to BLAME! And got Chuckles with the reading glasses perched on the end of the nose while reading (badly) a written statement from the podium. Oooo! It was included in the proceedings minutes. THAT will go down in history!
It is up to us to fight. But for the next six months (or less), our military, our veterans, our elderly won't be impact by a shutdown.
And it is up to all of us who can fight to fight. We have a national protest coming up on April 5 titled "HANDS OFF!!" to keep the awareness of what Musk and Project 2025 is doing to democracy front and center. In words that the MAGA supporters can understand. To make more cracks in that dam.
Quite frankly, I am rather enjoying my retirement!
It no longer surprises when left-wingers are prepared to something obviously destructive simply to score points over "the other side". It's totally childish but that doesn't bother them.
My objection to passing the CR is not based on any lack of feeling.
Failure to pass the CR would put the vast majority of Americans in desperate straits, granted, but you would not be alone. This could have been the precipitating event that triggered a nationwide labor strike, or any other potentially effective mass action.
As it is the administration is free to mix, match, and spread out the suffering in time, space, intensity to avoid triggering a mass rejection of the policies, in whatever form that takes.
Yes, I get it. fewer people suffer in the short term. But it is always about the area under the curve and observing that nobody will be spared in the longer term.
So human nature is going to serve Trump well. The destruction will be by state, or district, or county. While thousand are being crushed the unmolested will comfort themselves with fantasies about why it was the other group and not them.
Myths will surface and be taken as truths. You, see if you are just nicer to Trump ... Or were less loud ... Or maybe it is better to be rural ... Or urban. Or slightly whiter ... Or ... fill in the fucking blank.
Most likely nothing matters. The sequence is just a matter of whim. Monkeys throwing darts at a map.
But, alas, the moment for natural solidarity has passed. I don't know if I'm right. Was this the critical moment? IDK. I do know that we wont be given too many of these potential opportunities before the state solidifies and makes resistance merely performative. Look at how China handled Hong Kong. There was no chance of having any real effect. Not with face and gait recognition. Iron-clad electronic monitoring of all types of communication. All that and they track everyone, friends, acquaintances, relatives. Resistance is futile once the system is set up and manned.
We will all be trapped, as a group or individually. In the end, IMHO, it doesn't matter. I figure, some company would be nice.
Individual risk and vulnerability is always going to oppose collective action. If not now, when.
Democrats need to decide what they stand for, unite behind it, and take no prisoners. Else we find ourselves living in an essential dictatorship in 18 months.
But in this instance Schumer was right. He simply should not have given a contrary view earlier on.
Please, don't give up! We need you to help clarify things.
Rade: Thank you. The real mark of a thinking person is the ability to be persuaded to change one's viewpoint.
If the CR had failed due to a Democratic filibuster, then the Democrats would have been to blame -- because they could have prevented a shutdown but chose not to. No amount of logic-pretzeling would have stopped the voting public from grasping that.
I do not know enough about Schumer's leadership to evaluate it overall. I would prefer to see Fetterman as leader, but I doubt that will happen.
Nick: Unfortunately true. Far too many are so blinded by ideology that they no longer see human beings at all.
Anon: This is the cruelest and most elitist stance of all -- the "accelerationist" stance. Make everything as horrible as possible in the hope that mass suffering finally gets bad enough to trigger a mass uprising which will, somehow, advance the position you favor. It's the ultimate example of sacrificing the security and even lives of us marginal workers on the altar of a "revolutionary" outcome which, in reality, is unlikely to materialize or work out the way you hope even if it does materialize.
There are good reasons why Musk said he wanted a shutdown. It would have hugely accelerated the movement toward the nightmare scenario you describe, while mostly shutting down the court challenges which so far have been our most effective way of fighting back. As things are, now, we have a real hope of stopping his campaign to push us into disaster. With a shutdown, there would have been far less hope and far less time.
Les: I can accept some variation among Democrats in their response to Musk's vandalism -- we're not a uniform cult like the Trumpists, after all. But, yes, Schumer should have decided on a direction before making public statements.
Ricko: I intend to keep trying to clarify things as long as I'm still here. How long that will be under the current conditions, I don't know. I wasn't kidding about how close I am to the edge right now.
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