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On April 11 2026 07:17 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 17:43 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 16:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 14:16 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
The last time I had this particular conversation with GH he said that it wasn't necessary to make the positive case and convince the people because Americans will just follow their leaders or something along those lines. This is also why I think he believes that shitting on the Dems at every turn is advancing towards his goals. This is a "random gaming forum with ~10 people in the US" or whatever. Me being critical of Dems is just one of the ways I enjoy this space like most people enjoy shitposting about oBlade, baal's gambling, and Area 51 or whatever. You all have made it abundantly clear that advancing political goals isn't something anyone wants to happen here. So I take it you are still not bothered about convincing the American population that a socialism is the best option for them? Do you still think that this is unimportant because Americans will just follow their leaders? Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation? If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things. If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever. Trying to make this simple without being too reductive: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them. That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action. We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. Do you know anyone in real life that speaks exceedingly vague, gets even more abstract when asked for a straightforward answer, and then they insinuate you're uninformed/unintelligent/unempathetic for not getting it instead of giving you a Yes or No? If so, my condolences for your experience.
Usually that's lawyer speech. Ask everything, say nothing.
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On April 11 2026 07:17 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 17:43 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 16:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 14:16 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
The last time I had this particular conversation with GH he said that it wasn't necessary to make the positive case and convince the people because Americans will just follow their leaders or something along those lines. This is also why I think he believes that shitting on the Dems at every turn is advancing towards his goals. This is a "random gaming forum with ~10 people in the US" or whatever. Me being critical of Dems is just one of the ways I enjoy this space like most people enjoy shitposting about oBlade, baal's gambling, and Area 51 or whatever. You all have made it abundantly clear that advancing political goals isn't something anyone wants to happen here. So I take it you are still not bothered about convincing the American population that a socialism is the best option for them? Do you still think that this is unimportant because Americans will just follow their leaders? Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation? If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things. If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever. Trying to make this simple without being too reductive: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them. That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action. We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. Do you know anyone in real life that speaks exceedingly vague, gets even more abstract when asked for a straightforward answer, and then they insinuate you're uninformed/unintelligent/unempathetic for not getting it instead of giving you a Yes or No? If so, my condolences for your experience.
This is the eternal cycle of GH. He claims he wants good faith discussions but that everyone else is not willing. Someone believes him and participates with him answering all his questions to the best of their ability, but it gets frustrating for the person because it is clear that GH doesn't give two shits about what they think and is only using his questions to try to trick them into his world. He fails because he has no clear world view outside socialism good, capitalism evil. Then the person decides it is there time to ask questions expecting GH to give them the same courtesy they just gave him. They get disappointed when he gives some vague non answer he thinks sounds smart and thinks will trick them into thinking he knows lots. They ask again same until he moves onto the inevitable, you are just not nearly smart enough to engage with me, and you have not even read the secret texts by these authors, no I can't explain or summarize them (because he doesn't understand how to apply them, or maybe has not read them, I don't know). And the conclusion is another person who dislikes GH.
Crazy part is when the thread was more busy GH had his fans, people who had just not gone through the above. And often they would bail him out by answering the person he was being disingenuous too questions to which GH would say, yes that's right. Making the person who stepped in feel smart and on his side until they got to experience the above. This did lead to some interesting discussions because they were capable and willing unlike GH to have that discussion.
Sadly for him he has burnt through all his allies with the above, and there is no new meat to feast on. So generally he just insults people looking for attention. This last week or two has been nice as he has been back in, lets have a real discussion mode. It just always fails when its his time to contribute. Because he doesn't actually want discussion. He wants to spread his world view that he holds zealously with none of the backing to explain or discuss it in the context of the real world. He has mastered the title page, the big important words and niche names.
He is however, an expert on what the US has done bad mind you. And why everything is really the dems fault. He has all that information on lock down.
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On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 17:43 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 16:41 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
This is a "random gaming forum with ~10 people in the US" or whatever. Me being critical of Dems is just one of the ways I enjoy this space like most people enjoy shitposting about oBlade, baal's gambling, and Area 51 or whatever.
You all have made it abundantly clear that advancing political goals isn't something anyone wants to happen here. So I take it you are still not bothered about convincing the American population that a socialism is the best option for them? Do you still think that this is unimportant because Americans will just follow their leaders? Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation? If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things. If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever. Trying to make this simple without being too reductive: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them. That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action. We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included.
What do you mean "it" is not really "that"?
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not based in reality (this is a relatively new belief gaining popularity after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them
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The American public is more open to accept someone that would take a hypothetical horror dystopia and turn it into a reality show as opposed to just a show. That's what the billionaire pals are for. Maybe Trump's doing all this just to fund the scums child support.
When does anyone get to see the files (with victim protection ofc) ??? How many more suicides can they just shrug away?
Maybe if you send enough e-mails to jevacation you can become a billionaire too. Correlation and all that.
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 11 2026 04:40 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 04:03 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 02:18 dyhb wrote:On April 11 2026 01:21 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 00:04 dyhb wrote:On April 10 2026 21:28 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 09 2026 23:18 dyhb wrote:On April 09 2026 16:18 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 09 2026 14:12 dyhb wrote:On April 09 2026 08:12 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
[quote]
Well, Iran has a recent history of just not agreeing to a ceasefire, and the US has a (less) recent history of attacking Iran during negotiation or breaking a ceasefire.
Doesn't seem to me like a case of 'declaring as truth anything that is anti-Trump' and more of a case of 'believing the side that has acted more credibly in this totally-not-war'. You seem to show a recency-bias on your thinking patterns without justifying yourself. I'd simply call it ignoring history. Year after year of absolutely lying to the IAEA on their nuclear development, sanitizing locations, stopping inspectors. Denying assistance to the Houthis, in the past also to Hezbollah, among other routine attempts to deny assistance to their proxies. That and the fact that if Iran didn't want a ceasefire and just wanted to keep the strait closed, then they had no incentive to agree to one in the first place given their stated, and well justified, distrust of US 'negotiation'.
That and there is the distinct possibility that there is only an agreement in principle to a ceasefire, and noone has actually agreed to actual terms. So both sides just operate under what think they can and can't do, and will accuse the opposition of violating what they think shouldn't be done.
We could just be watching in real time, both sides discover that they don't actually have terms both sides can agree to for a ceasefire. I say both sides, because I have a hard time believing Israel even want a ceasefire, so it's really only the US and Iran negotiating. They certainly want one on their terms, since agreeing to a ceasefire that only binds their opponents and still allows them threats or tolls on passing ships is a win-win. I don't claim to know precisely what was agreed to in principle. I know enough that stating Iran's *claims about what happened* as absolute fact (that the US violated the ceasefire) is ignorance or indifference to truth. It could be that the framework was simply that the US and Iran stop their attacks/threatened attacks on the country and civilian vessels while negotiations continue to how to make it last two weeks. Doesn't seem to me like a case of 'declaring as truth anything that is anti-Trump' and more of a case of ' believing the side that has acted more credibly in this totally-not-war'Oh no, I'm showing recency bias, when talking about conduct during a war that just got hot a little over a month ago. I mean, what that source is claiming, is not very far fetched. Israel has verifiably continued its attacks in Lebanon. It's difficult to imagine a world where the US said 'go ahead on your nuclear program', we don't know about the drone, but again... not exactly farfetched that a drone flew over Iranian airspace. The source did not even claim that the US agreed to these conditions, in fact the phrasing is their '10-point ceasefire proposal'. While I'm not sure calling this 'Trump violating the ceasefire' is very accurate, do you have any reason to doubt 'Iran's *claims about what happened'? Given one of his points is verifiably true, one would be difficult to imagine being untrue, and the third being not really an extraordinary claim. I'd say it's more of a case that this ceasefire had very few terms and conditions to begin with, let alone any they actually agree on and we are just seeing two sides confirm there is little common ground for a ceasefire to actually take effect. You just gotta hand it to the bloodthirsty state sponsors of terrorism that kill 30,000 of their own people: they just run the most credible wars. The wars where they're attacking non-parties with missiles, you know. Very credibleSorry, it reeks of bias. Particularly, calling their habit of lying in support of their regime as not germane to their credibility, and a strange excluded-middle fallacy that both sides simply can't be lying through their teeth. Two final things, since you've strayed from the post I wrote in ways that muddy up the issue. First, I gather you now agree with me that "Trump has already violated the terms of the ceasefire" is inaccurate? Remember, it's a positive statement of fact. That you both know what the terms were, and know that Trump violated them, simply because Iran told you. If you never disagreed with my post, just tell me. Second, why on earth does one side's penchant for lying mean you have to downrate the other's penchant for lying? I expect both to lie in their self-interest. That makes the search for the truth of it more difficult. My posts have never been to agree with DPB's assertion that Trump has violated the ceasefire, I said as much when I that this conclusion does not actually follow from the source he is quoting. I didn't even think there were enough terms discussed (much less agreed to) for a ceasefire beyond both sides vaguely agreeing there exist a list of demands for each side where they would agree to stop fighting if such demands are met. Subsequent statements by Sharif frankly seem to suggest they did seem to indicate agreement to some terms. My assertion was always just that Iran's statements about this war have been remarkably straight-foward and accurate. They have stated right from the beginning that they were prepared to weather a considerable amount of decapitation of their leadership structure, they warned they were going to close the Hormuz strait. They warned they were going to strike regional US allies. I say remarkably straight forward, because I don't expect this level of directness of any country engaged in, or about to engage in a war. They have communicated (threatened really) a clear strategic approach, then executed it. In contrast, the US communications during the war seem to suggest even THEY don't know what their strategic approach is. It's difficult to be credible when you are making 180 degree turns on goals and grand strategy every few days. Trump has also repeatedly claimed that Iran have either: initiated negotiations, already conducted good talks etc, while Iran have repeatedly denied this. Look, I don't care who the two parties are, if one side is claiming there are productive talks between the two sides, while the other side shows complete disinterest, I'm believing the complete disinterest. So when it comes to statements on where they think they stand in this war in terms of what they are going to do next, their receptiveness to negotiation, or in this case, whether they consider themselves still in and bound by a ceasefire. Iran has been far more credible. To your point on past Iranian dishonesty: Firstly, to use your own words "a strange excluded-middle fallacy that both sides simply can't be lying through their teeth." I don't find either side to be of a particularly (or even generally) honest nature. I don't need them to be. Despite whatever dishonesty, Iranian statements about about the goings on of this war have a remarkable (again, in the literal sense, not that they are all true, just that they overall tell a pretty accurate story) conformity to reality in a way US statements do not. I'm interested in knowing, to the best available information what's going on and where each side stands, not an emotional investment in the 'our honest good guys' being more virtuous than the 'their dishonest bad guys'. There are frankly here at least three sets of 'dishonest bad guys' and I hope they all lose. In the meantime I'm going to give more credence to statements from one that has consistently stood up better to reality over the course of this war. Then you agree with me on the only points I sought to make to DarkPlasmaBall, and the only reason I replied to his post. Trump did not violate the ceasefire, as far as we know, and we can't take Iran's word that he did. You made me think you believed otherwise when you wrote "believing the side that has acted more credibly," since now you elaborate that you believe neither. I would describe some of your characterizations as Iran being transparent about their aims. It's not that remarkable given their strategic situation. They had one strategic card to play (would have been 2 if they got nuclear weapons) and they played it. They are obviously unwilling to surrender that bargaining chip for a ceasefire, since their enemy is vulnerable to the economic effects of disrupted trade. They have less vulnerability. Many of their leaders are willing to die to achieve their political/religious goals. Both the US and Iran have a high rate of dishonesty (in the pursuit of their interests) in this conflict that exceeds my willingness to talk about their truthfulness relative to each other. I say this particularly because there's no leaked audio/transcript or signed document to judge in an absolute sense. The international situation, or the local military situation, or the domestic political situation shifts and suddenly the incentives change and dictate behavior. On April 10 2026 05:26 Dan HH wrote:
Opening the strait went so well that they had to send Melania to hold a press conference about Epstein and bring him back to the top of the headline pile I hope the new meme is that Trump does everything to distract from Iran instead of Trump does everything to distract from Epstein. The old one was getting stale. On April 10 2026 17:49 Biff The Understudy wrote:
The US will really change the day people stop thinking that sending someone to jail for 18 years for a petty crime is ok, or that firemen should be a collective service and not ignore your burning house when you haven’t paid your little subscription. Two bad examples that only serve to show a lack of knowledge about what the US believes "is ok." You'll need broad, national examples and polling to make the point about "the US" and not cherry-picked examples with missing context that could be provided to make the opposite point better. I mean polling is all well and good, but if x thing exists, and has existed for decades+, I think it’s broadly OK to say there’s some tacit acceptance of that status quo being exemplified. Weight of sentiment does come into it as well, I mean an issue can be split 50/50 in favourability, but in this hypothetical if one group really cares about x issue, and the other much less, it’s not really a 50/50 in reality. The US has many such ‘quirks’ rather alien to us other ANZACs or Euros, plenty of which either a high minority or majority of Americans think are undesirable, end of the day they’re still there. From cursory (non-exhaustive) Googling, I mean take healthcare. There’s a majority in favour in the States for some form of nationalised healthcare, but like 20-30% lower than in places like the UK that I had a gander at. It also drops when tax bumps are added into the question, into minority favourability. Same with public healthcare supplanting and not supplementing people’s private care. I mean how do we parse that? A majority say they’re in favour, but that becomes a minority when it comes to actually doing it, so are they really in favour? Regardless of my ramblings I assume all Biff meant was that if the US can’t align in certain areas with even merely centrist equivalent contemporary nations, of which I’d class the UK by European standards, they sure ain’t gonna go socialist anytime soon One of the “quirks” is federalism. If X state does something, you can’t say the US is ok with it. If Y city or county does something, it doesn’t mean the US is ok with it. The people who aren’t ok with it never made that law, or repealed a law, etc. Because of the great number of things some citizens aren’t ok with, and others are, we adopted limiting lines so we can all coexist. And then you get into the problem of demonstrating you’re not ok with it through civil protest or taking up arms against your own government. Are you ok with it, or are you just not on board with the steps it would take? Hence, polling. If you have further, you should really look into the specific cited examples and answer the question, “Do you agree that these are poor examples both for lacking context and aren’t national examples?” I’ve run into some posts that are tangents and not replies. The main points are in total agreement, though unmentioned. To a point. But on the flipside you can take like 20+ completely different nation states of similar(ish) levels of economic development, some of which have their own forms of federalism, devolved governments etc, and find the US is still the outlier in certain domains. I don’t see the bearing this has on your argument. Show nested quote +As for the given examples, I don’t think they were anything other than throwaways. Of the two I think one can package the firemen example into something more localised, bad example. The prison one isn’t 100% universal across the States either, but equally, while not being wholly evenly distributed, the States does have a much larger prison population than any of us lot per capita, and generally a more punitive attitude towards criminal justice. Preferably, give examples that are true nationally. The examples given are untrue. You’d be hard-pressed to find Americans that support 18 years for petty offenses, and almost as hard-pressed to find a petty crime that gave someone 18 years. GH’s dreams are wrong for more asinine reasons than ignorant mistellings of what Americans support.
It wasn’t really part of my argument, fair enough point. But if we can’t make generalised observations because America has regionalised differences, that applies basically everywhere, and sometimes more so.
Anyway I digress, Biff didn’t pick the best examples going, albeit I don’t think they were going for rigid analysis there. Agreed there, although I feel (and have looked) that there are certain topics with a broad enough buy in from Americans to reasonably accurately claim ‘Americans think x’ for comparative purposes
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On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 17:43 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
So I take it you are still not bothered about convincing the American population that a socialism is the best option for them? Do you still think that this is unimportant because Americans will just follow their leaders? Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation? If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things. If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever. Trying to make this simple without being too reductive: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them. That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action. We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism. Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)" I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them
Acting like a spoiler works if you have critical mass, no argument there, the tea party did it and very successfully. The problem is when you don't have critical mass and acting like the spoiler just gets you more conservative policies (or whatever the appropriate label is these days, I can't keep up). Here, the fundamental problem is that Americans skew heavily right wing on average and socialism is basically a dirty word, so how do we get that critical mass? Being a spoiler has not worked because the numbers just aren't there - I would genuinely like to be wrong about this one, but I don't think I am.
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On April 12 2026 03:52 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation?
If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless.
So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism. Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)" I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them Acting like a spoiler works if you have critical mass, no argument there, + Show Spoiler + the tea party did it and very successfully. The problem is when you don't have critical mass and acting like the spoiler just gets you more conservative policies (or whatever the appropriate label is these days, I can't keep up). Here, the fundamental problem is that Americans skew heavily right wing on average and socialism is basically a dirty word, so how do we get that critical mass? Being a spoiler has not worked because the numbers just aren't there - I would genuinely like to be wrong about this one, but I don't think I am.
Let's take this one step at a time. While I suppose it could be a particular tactic under the umbrella of any leverage based theory of change, I'm not describing being a "spoiler". I'm addressing a fundamental misunderstanding about how things actually change in the US.
Can we focus on clarifying that first?
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What GH is trying very hard to not say, because fuck having an actual discussion, is the last time a real significant change happend in the US was the civil rights movement and that didn't happen because of people peacefully protesting but because of the black panthers so we should all get off our asses and grab our guns for the revolution.
(Note, the views expressed in this post do not represent Gorsameth but instead represent GH, any disagreement with them should be directed at him, and if GH doesn't agree with this characterization he can finally type a plain sentence instead of waving his hands around)
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 17:43 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
So I take it you are still not bothered about convincing the American population that a socialism is the best option for them? Do you still think that this is unimportant because Americans will just follow their leaders? Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation? If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things. If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever. Trying to make this simple without being too reductive: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them. That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action. We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"?
I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before:
Was in response to this specifically, albeit I did not make it clear what I was referring to particularly clearly. I don’t see how Ender is doing anything but asking a few questions, and isn’t innately reticent about such concepts due to their current worldview.
I may be entirely wrong there, but reading as a third party it’s not the impression I get.
Previously GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them
I’m not sure this is correct either. If I were to guess, the majority would consider both of those parts of enacting change, or weapons in the arsenal, to varying degrees of importance. Sure that’s probably correct
I would also hazard a guess that the majority would also understand and consider the importance of the latter, both historically and contemporaneously, as a pretty critical part of the change puzzle.
I think your analysis is perfectly on the money, but I think it’s more widely shared, or at least similar viewpoints are, than you’re making out here
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On April 12 2026 02:40 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2026 04:40 dyhb wrote:On April 11 2026 04:03 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 02:18 dyhb wrote:On April 11 2026 01:21 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 00:04 dyhb wrote:On April 10 2026 21:28 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 09 2026 23:18 dyhb wrote:On April 09 2026 16:18 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 09 2026 14:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]You seem to show a recency-bias on your thinking patterns without justifying yourself. I'd simply call it ignoring history. Year after year of absolutely lying to the IAEA on their nuclear development, sanitizing locations, stopping inspectors. Denying assistance to the Houthis, in the past also to Hezbollah, among other routine attempts to deny assistance to their proxies.
[quote]They certainly want one on their terms, since agreeing to a ceasefire that only binds their opponents and still allows them threats or tolls on passing ships is a win-win.
I don't claim to know precisely what was agreed to in principle. I know enough that stating Iran's *claims about what happened* as absolute fact (that the US violated the ceasefire) is ignorance or indifference to truth. It could be that the framework was simply that the US and Iran stop their attacks/threatened attacks on the country and civilian vessels while negotiations continue to how to make it last two weeks. Doesn't seem to me like a case of 'declaring as truth anything that is anti-Trump' and more of a case of ' believing the side that has acted more credibly in this totally-not-war'Oh no, I'm showing recency bias, when talking about conduct during a war that just got hot a little over a month ago. I mean, what that source is claiming, is not very far fetched. Israel has verifiably continued its attacks in Lebanon. It's difficult to imagine a world where the US said 'go ahead on your nuclear program', we don't know about the drone, but again... not exactly farfetched that a drone flew over Iranian airspace. The source did not even claim that the US agreed to these conditions, in fact the phrasing is their '10-point ceasefire proposal'. While I'm not sure calling this 'Trump violating the ceasefire' is very accurate, do you have any reason to doubt 'Iran's *claims about what happened'? Given one of his points is verifiably true, one would be difficult to imagine being untrue, and the third being not really an extraordinary claim. I'd say it's more of a case that this ceasefire had very few terms and conditions to begin with, let alone any they actually agree on and we are just seeing two sides confirm there is little common ground for a ceasefire to actually take effect. You just gotta hand it to the bloodthirsty state sponsors of terrorism that kill 30,000 of their own people: they just run the most credible wars. The wars where they're attacking non-parties with missiles, you know. Very credibleSorry, it reeks of bias. Particularly, calling their habit of lying in support of their regime as not germane to their credibility, and a strange excluded-middle fallacy that both sides simply can't be lying through their teeth. Two final things, since you've strayed from the post I wrote in ways that muddy up the issue. First, I gather you now agree with me that "Trump has already violated the terms of the ceasefire" is inaccurate? Remember, it's a positive statement of fact. That you both know what the terms were, and know that Trump violated them, simply because Iran told you. If you never disagreed with my post, just tell me. Second, why on earth does one side's penchant for lying mean you have to downrate the other's penchant for lying? I expect both to lie in their self-interest. That makes the search for the truth of it more difficult. My posts have never been to agree with DPB's assertion that Trump has violated the ceasefire, I said as much when I that this conclusion does not actually follow from the source he is quoting. I didn't even think there were enough terms discussed (much less agreed to) for a ceasefire beyond both sides vaguely agreeing there exist a list of demands for each side where they would agree to stop fighting if such demands are met. Subsequent statements by Sharif frankly seem to suggest they did seem to indicate agreement to some terms. My assertion was always just that Iran's statements about this war have been remarkably straight-foward and accurate. They have stated right from the beginning that they were prepared to weather a considerable amount of decapitation of their leadership structure, they warned they were going to close the Hormuz strait. They warned they were going to strike regional US allies. I say remarkably straight forward, because I don't expect this level of directness of any country engaged in, or about to engage in a war. They have communicated (threatened really) a clear strategic approach, then executed it. In contrast, the US communications during the war seem to suggest even THEY don't know what their strategic approach is. It's difficult to be credible when you are making 180 degree turns on goals and grand strategy every few days. Trump has also repeatedly claimed that Iran have either: initiated negotiations, already conducted good talks etc, while Iran have repeatedly denied this. Look, I don't care who the two parties are, if one side is claiming there are productive talks between the two sides, while the other side shows complete disinterest, I'm believing the complete disinterest. So when it comes to statements on where they think they stand in this war in terms of what they are going to do next, their receptiveness to negotiation, or in this case, whether they consider themselves still in and bound by a ceasefire. Iran has been far more credible. To your point on past Iranian dishonesty: Firstly, to use your own words "a strange excluded-middle fallacy that both sides simply can't be lying through their teeth." I don't find either side to be of a particularly (or even generally) honest nature. I don't need them to be. Despite whatever dishonesty, Iranian statements about about the goings on of this war have a remarkable (again, in the literal sense, not that they are all true, just that they overall tell a pretty accurate story) conformity to reality in a way US statements do not. I'm interested in knowing, to the best available information what's going on and where each side stands, not an emotional investment in the 'our honest good guys' being more virtuous than the 'their dishonest bad guys'. There are frankly here at least three sets of 'dishonest bad guys' and I hope they all lose. In the meantime I'm going to give more credence to statements from one that has consistently stood up better to reality over the course of this war. Then you agree with me on the only points I sought to make to DarkPlasmaBall, and the only reason I replied to his post. Trump did not violate the ceasefire, as far as we know, and we can't take Iran's word that he did. You made me think you believed otherwise when you wrote "believing the side that has acted more credibly," since now you elaborate that you believe neither. I would describe some of your characterizations as Iran being transparent about their aims. It's not that remarkable given their strategic situation. They had one strategic card to play (would have been 2 if they got nuclear weapons) and they played it. They are obviously unwilling to surrender that bargaining chip for a ceasefire, since their enemy is vulnerable to the economic effects of disrupted trade. They have less vulnerability. Many of their leaders are willing to die to achieve their political/religious goals. Both the US and Iran have a high rate of dishonesty (in the pursuit of their interests) in this conflict that exceeds my willingness to talk about their truthfulness relative to each other. I say this particularly because there's no leaked audio/transcript or signed document to judge in an absolute sense. The international situation, or the local military situation, or the domestic political situation shifts and suddenly the incentives change and dictate behavior. On April 10 2026 05:26 Dan HH wrote:
Opening the strait went so well that they had to send Melania to hold a press conference about Epstein and bring him back to the top of the headline pile I hope the new meme is that Trump does everything to distract from Iran instead of Trump does everything to distract from Epstein. The old one was getting stale. On April 10 2026 17:49 Biff The Understudy wrote:
The US will really change the day people stop thinking that sending someone to jail for 18 years for a petty crime is ok, or that firemen should be a collective service and not ignore your burning house when you haven’t paid your little subscription. Two bad examples that only serve to show a lack of knowledge about what the US believes "is ok." You'll need broad, national examples and polling to make the point about "the US" and not cherry-picked examples with missing context that could be provided to make the opposite point better. I mean polling is all well and good, but if x thing exists, and has existed for decades+, I think it’s broadly OK to say there’s some tacit acceptance of that status quo being exemplified. Weight of sentiment does come into it as well, I mean an issue can be split 50/50 in favourability, but in this hypothetical if one group really cares about x issue, and the other much less, it’s not really a 50/50 in reality. The US has many such ‘quirks’ rather alien to us other ANZACs or Euros, plenty of which either a high minority or majority of Americans think are undesirable, end of the day they’re still there. From cursory (non-exhaustive) Googling, I mean take healthcare. There’s a majority in favour in the States for some form of nationalised healthcare, but like 20-30% lower than in places like the UK that I had a gander at. It also drops when tax bumps are added into the question, into minority favourability. Same with public healthcare supplanting and not supplementing people’s private care. I mean how do we parse that? A majority say they’re in favour, but that becomes a minority when it comes to actually doing it, so are they really in favour? Regardless of my ramblings I assume all Biff meant was that if the US can’t align in certain areas with even merely centrist equivalent contemporary nations, of which I’d class the UK by European standards, they sure ain’t gonna go socialist anytime soon One of the “quirks” is federalism. If X state does something, you can’t say the US is ok with it. If Y city or county does something, it doesn’t mean the US is ok with it. The people who aren’t ok with it never made that law, or repealed a law, etc. Because of the great number of things some citizens aren’t ok with, and others are, we adopted limiting lines so we can all coexist. And then you get into the problem of demonstrating you’re not ok with it through civil protest or taking up arms against your own government. Are you ok with it, or are you just not on board with the steps it would take? Hence, polling. If you have further, you should really look into the specific cited examples and answer the question, “Do you agree that these are poor examples both for lacking context and aren’t national examples?” I’ve run into some posts that are tangents and not replies. The main points are in total agreement, though unmentioned. To a point. But on the flipside you can take like 20+ completely different nation states of similar(ish) levels of economic development, some of which have their own forms of federalism, devolved governments etc, and find the US is still the outlier in certain domains. I don’t see the bearing this has on your argument. As for the given examples, I don’t think they were anything other than throwaways. Of the two I think one can package the firemen example into something more localised, bad example. The prison one isn’t 100% universal across the States either, but equally, while not being wholly evenly distributed, the States does have a much larger prison population than any of us lot per capita, and generally a more punitive attitude towards criminal justice. Preferably, give examples that are true nationally. The examples given are untrue. You’d be hard-pressed to find Americans that support 18 years for petty offenses, and almost as hard-pressed to find a petty crime that gave someone 18 years. GH’s dreams are wrong for more asinine reasons than ignorant mistellings of what Americans support. It wasn’t really part of my argument, fair enough point. But if we can’t make generalised observations because America has regionalised differences, that applies basically everywhere, and sometimes more so. I would hope that it matters whether or not something can be generalized or applied to the general population. If I find a single town in Northern Ireland that has a practice or belief, I hope you wouldn't yield that it equally applies to all the Northern Irish and saying otherwise means you're just against making generalized observations. Truth matters, even in the age of Trump.
Anyway I digress, Biff didn’t pick the best examples going, albeit I don’t think they were going for rigid analysis there. Agreed there, although I feel (and have looked) that there are certain topics with a broad enough buy in from Americans to reasonably accurately claim ‘Americans think x’ for comparative purposes I hope people with more knowledge of what Americans believe will be able to pick real examples, rather than relying on the most absurd ones out of a stupid desire for shock value or simple ignorance of what people in other countries think. Some Americans have pretty stupid ones for various European countries, so I don't mean to suggest that Biff's ignorance or unconcern for truth is unique.
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On April 12 2026 04:33 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 10 2026 18:56 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Do you have a link to what you're talking about or are we supposed to rely on your memory and trust your interpretation?
If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless.
So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? Show nested quote + I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +Was in response to this specifically, albeit I did not make it clear what I was referring to particularly clearly. I don’t see how Ender is doing anything but asking a few questions, and isn’t innately reticent about such concepts due to their current worldview. I may be entirely wrong there, but reading as a third party it’s not the impression I get. Previously GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them I’m not sure this is correct either. If I were to guess, the majority would consider both of those parts of enacting change, or weapons in the arsenal, to varying degrees of importance. Sure that’s probably correct I would also hazard a guess that the majority would also understand and consider the importance of the latter, both historically and contemporaneously, as a pretty critical part of the change puzzle. I think your analysis is perfectly on the money, but I think it’s more widely shared, or at least similar viewpoints are, than you’re making out here
Ostensibly, but not quite.
If I were to steelman your position I would say that you believe the primary disagreement isn't about an electoralism/institutional ToC vs a Leverage Based ToC, but that we're disagreeing on the role of election/Democrat vs Republican focused movement building plays in a shared leverage based ToC.
I would say that argument would at least be moving us in the right direction, but it isn't an accurate reflection of the situation. We'll see how this goes with Ender I suppose?
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 12 2026 04:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 04:33 WombaT wrote:On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:[quote] So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +Was in response to this specifically, albeit I did not make it clear what I was referring to particularly clearly. I don’t see how Ender is doing anything but asking a few questions, and isn’t innately reticent about such concepts due to their current worldview. I may be entirely wrong there, but reading as a third party it’s not the impression I get. Previously GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them I’m not sure this is correct either. If I were to guess, the majority would consider both of those parts of enacting change, or weapons in the arsenal, to varying degrees of importance. Sure that’s probably correct I would also hazard a guess that the majority would also understand and consider the importance of the latter, both historically and contemporaneously, as a pretty critical part of the change puzzle. I think your analysis is perfectly on the money, but I think it’s more widely shared, or at least similar viewpoints are, than you’re making out here Ostensibly, but not quite. If I were to steelman your position I would say that you believe the primary disagreement isn't about an electoralism/institutional ToC vs a Leverage Based ToC, but that we're disagreeing on the role of election/Democrat vs Republican focused movement building plays in a shared leverage based ToC. I would say that argument would at least be moving us in the right direction, but it isn't an accurate reflection of the situation. We'll see how this goes with Ender I suppose?
Yeah, to a degree that’s probably pretty accurate.
I’d imagine most agree that electoralism alone isn’t especially effective. Without the leverage of movements being applied, indeed sometimes even with that, the democratic transfer from public wants and needs to legislative activity ain’t exactly going to be 1:1
I’d wager a fair few would agree with me that we’ve somewhat seen that dual approach being rather politically effective in the relatively recent past. Only it was the Tea Party metastasising into MAGA, if we’re talking the American context.
From what I broadly gather from various snippets, I think quite a few questions or doubts on this topic are rather specifically couched in the emergence of genuine left-wing movements, at a national level, specifically in an America that say, holds enough folks willing to elect a Donald Trump.
If we were to change scope here somewhat and say, discuss some hypothetical grass roots anti-Fascism movement, especially given some of the deficiencies in strict electoralism we’ve all seen exposed, I think one probably gets rather different responses in terms of desirability or viability.
Put crudely in this specific context, it feels like one has to pick between a more limited anti-Fascism in the here and now, and the more left wing stuff for the future as a stretch goal, or well, lose.
Or perhaps not, albeit it seems a difficult coalition to hold together without a good chunk of compromises at various ends.
Many people will blame people of your vague positions for Trump getting his second term in the first place. Whether correct or fair, it is one of those things that just is, unfortunately. One even sees some of that hostility in here, which both probably leans considerably leftward and more educated on politics than the general population.
I think what some thread denizens are tending to ask is do you recognise these kind of difficulties, how do you parse them and what do you actually propose in plain old-fashioned colloquial English? Rather than Freire anecdotes or whatever, although I did gain insight from his (and others’) work so cheers for some of the references and recommendations over the years.
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions
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On April 12 2026 05:43 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 04:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 12 2026 04:33 WombaT wrote:On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I said:
[quote]
It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said:
[quote]
If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +Was in response to this specifically, albeit I did not make it clear what I was referring to particularly clearly. I don’t see how Ender is doing anything but asking a few questions, and isn’t innately reticent about such concepts due to their current worldview. I may be entirely wrong there, but reading as a third party it’s not the impression I get. Previously GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them I’m not sure this is correct either. If I were to guess, the majority would consider both of those parts of enacting change, or weapons in the arsenal, to varying degrees of importance. Sure that’s probably correct I would also hazard a guess that the majority would also understand and consider the importance of the latter, both historically and contemporaneously, as a pretty critical part of the change puzzle. I think your analysis is perfectly on the money, but I think it’s more widely shared, or at least similar viewpoints are, than you’re making out here Ostensibly, but not quite. If I were to steelman your position I would say that you believe the primary disagreement isn't about an electoralism/institutional ToC vs a Leverage Based ToC, but that we're disagreeing on the role of election/Democrat vs Republican focused movement building plays in a shared leverage based ToC. I would say that argument would at least be moving us in the right direction, but it isn't an accurate reflection of the situation. We'll see how this goes with Ender I suppose? + Show Spoiler +Yeah, to a degree that’s probably pretty accurate.
I’d imagine most agree that electoralism alone isn’t especially effective. Without the leverage of movements being applied, indeed sometimes even with that, the democratic transfer from public wants and needs to legislative activity ain’t exactly going to be 1:1
I’d wager a fair few would agree with me that we’ve somewhat seen that dual approach being rather politically effective in the relatively recent past. Only it was the Tea Party metastasising into MAGA, if we’re talking the American context.
From what I broadly gather from various snippets, I think quite a few questions or doubts on this topic are rather specifically couched in the emergence of genuine left-wing movements, at a national level, specifically in an America that say, holds enough folks willing to elect a Donald Trump.
If we were to change scope here somewhat and say, discuss some hypothetical grass roots anti-Fascism movement, especially given some of the deficiencies in strict electoralism we’ve all seen exposed, I think one probably gets rather different responses in terms of desirability or viability.
Put crudely in this specific context, it feels like one has to pick between a more limited anti-Fascism in the here and now, and the more left wing stuff for the future as a stretch goal, or well, lose.
Or perhaps not, albeit it seems a difficult coalition to hold together without a good chunk of compromises at various ends.
Many people will blame people of your vague positions for Trump getting his second term in the first place. Whether correct or fair, it is one of those things that just is, unfortunately. One even sees some of that hostility in here, which both probably leans considerably leftward and more educated on politics than the general population.
I think what some thread denizens are tending to ask is do you recognise these kind of difficulties, how do you parse them and what do you actually propose in plain old-fashioned colloquial English? Rather than Freire anecdotes or whatever, although I did gain insight from his (and others’) work so cheers for some of the references and recommendations over the years.
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc? I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions
+ Show Spoiler +In situations like this it's hard to decide whether it's more effective to just patiently wait for someone like Ender to respond and move this along incrementally or engage with someone like you who is at a different part of the process and risk those that haven't actually taken the steps/positions you're crediting them for fixating on something we discuss out of context or in bad-faith. Here goes...
If I'm going to steelman what I believe you really want/where we align it is: a discussion about how to get from where we are to where we want to be (basically LightSpectra's Star Trek utopia goal). I don't think anyone expects either of us (but sure, let's explore Light's plan too at some point) to lay out exactly how we get from here to there.
The practical thing that comes to mind is what I (and many before me) describe as "non-reformist reforms". Probably as some starters:
1. Which ones make sense to pursue
2. How should they be prioritized
3. How do we amass enough leverage to achieve them
I'm suggesting those are all points of contention between people with various worldviews/ToCs. 3 is the one that essentially has cannibalized 1 and 2 into "electing Democrats".
Additionally I'm pointing out that this "electing Democrats ToC" is basically propaganda that gained popularity about the same time as expensive Diamond rings being a necessary component of a real engagement/marriage and is at least as durable as an indoctrinated "truth".
Can you (or someone else) try to steelman me back?
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 12 2026 06:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 05:43 WombaT wrote:On April 12 2026 04:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 12 2026 04:33 WombaT wrote:On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:[quote] + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +Was in response to this specifically, albeit I did not make it clear what I was referring to particularly clearly. I don’t see how Ender is doing anything but asking a few questions, and isn’t innately reticent about such concepts due to their current worldview. I may be entirely wrong there, but reading as a third party it’s not the impression I get. Previously GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism.
Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)"
I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them I’m not sure this is correct either. If I were to guess, the majority would consider both of those parts of enacting change, or weapons in the arsenal, to varying degrees of importance. Sure that’s probably correct I would also hazard a guess that the majority would also understand and consider the importance of the latter, both historically and contemporaneously, as a pretty critical part of the change puzzle. I think your analysis is perfectly on the money, but I think it’s more widely shared, or at least similar viewpoints are, than you’re making out here Ostensibly, but not quite. If I were to steelman your position I would say that you believe the primary disagreement isn't about an electoralism/institutional ToC vs a Leverage Based ToC, but that we're disagreeing on the role of election/Democrat vs Republican focused movement building plays in a shared leverage based ToC. I would say that argument would at least be moving us in the right direction, but it isn't an accurate reflection of the situation. We'll see how this goes with Ender I suppose? + Show Spoiler +Yeah, to a degree that’s probably pretty accurate.
I’d imagine most agree that electoralism alone isn’t especially effective. Without the leverage of movements being applied, indeed sometimes even with that, the democratic transfer from public wants and needs to legislative activity ain’t exactly going to be 1:1
I’d wager a fair few would agree with me that we’ve somewhat seen that dual approach being rather politically effective in the relatively recent past. Only it was the Tea Party metastasising into MAGA, if we’re talking the American context.
From what I broadly gather from various snippets, I think quite a few questions or doubts on this topic are rather specifically couched in the emergence of genuine left-wing movements, at a national level, specifically in an America that say, holds enough folks willing to elect a Donald Trump.
If we were to change scope here somewhat and say, discuss some hypothetical grass roots anti-Fascism movement, especially given some of the deficiencies in strict electoralism we’ve all seen exposed, I think one probably gets rather different responses in terms of desirability or viability.
Put crudely in this specific context, it feels like one has to pick between a more limited anti-Fascism in the here and now, and the more left wing stuff for the future as a stretch goal, or well, lose.
Or perhaps not, albeit it seems a difficult coalition to hold together without a good chunk of compromises at various ends.
Many people will blame people of your vague positions for Trump getting his second term in the first place. Whether correct or fair, it is one of those things that just is, unfortunately. One even sees some of that hostility in here, which both probably leans considerably leftward and more educated on politics than the general population.
I think what some thread denizens are tending to ask is do you recognise these kind of difficulties, how do you parse them and what do you actually propose in plain old-fashioned colloquial English? Rather than Freire anecdotes or whatever, although I did gain insight from his (and others’) work so cheers for some of the references and recommendations over the years.
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc? I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions + Show Spoiler +In situations like this it's hard to decide whether it's more effective to just patiently wait for someone like Ender to respond and move this along incrementally or engage with someone like you who is at a different part of the process and risk those that haven't actually taken the steps/positions you're crediting them for fixating on something we discuss out of context or in bad-faith. Here goes... If I'm going to steelman what I believe you really want/where we align it is: a discussion about how to get from where we are to where we want to be (basically LightSpectra's Star Trek utopia goal). I don't think anyone expects either of us (but sure, let's explore Light's plan too at some point) to lay out exactly how we get from here to there. The practical thing that comes to mind is what I (and many before me) describe as " non-reformist reforms". Probably as some starters: 1. Which ones make sense to pursue 2. How should they be prioritized 3. How do we amass enough leverage to achieve them I'm suggesting those are all points of contention between people with various worldviews/ToCs. 3 is the one that essentially has cannibalized 1 and 2 into "electing Democrats". Additionally I'm pointing out that this "electing Democrats ToC" is basically propaganda that gained popularity about the same time as expensive Diamond rings being a necessary component of a real engagement/marriage and is at least as durable as an indoctrinated "truth". Can you (or someone else) try to steelman me back?
I don’t think ‘electing Democrats’ is necessarily propagandistic, depends why.
If one thinks they’re gonna fix everything they’ve drunk the Koolaid, if one’s position is simply a ‘hey I don’t like it, but the alternative is Trump having the levers of state’ and its harm reduction, I’ve a hard time viewing such an individual as guzzling on propoganda.
You’re giving me frameworks, and frameworks can have plenty of utility to ponder my own thoughts. Or indeed Minibat is starting to become interested in politics and while his ma may be a political academic, it’s the kinda thing I’d discuss with him as well and a nicely summated checklist. I’m asking what you think about x, y or z from my prior post.
My understanding of your position is that the Dems don’t cut the mustard, and at some point one has to cut the cord otherwise one is (and the collective) trapped in the lesser evil loop essentially in perpetuity. So alternative avenues need to be found.
I don’t broadly disagree there, what divergence would be that I’d have sucked it up and gone blue based on the alternative, and a certain skepticism of how ripe a ground the US is for the kind of politics I believe in. Certainly nationally anyway. Alternatively a future where the US fragmented into its constituent parts, I could see some parts doing it, but I don’t consider the former likely.
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
In other, completely unsurprising news - Cognitive dissonance helps explain why Trump supporters remain loyal, new research suggests
It certainly feels atypical in its intensity to me anyway. I wonder how intensely it’s tethered to Trump specifically and if that particular torch can be passed to the next person and have it persist.
If so, I wonder if it changes any approaches from others moving forwards.
If we’re entering an epoch where cult of personality and cognitive dissonance reign supreme I guess others may have to adjust. Hopefully not necessary, politics at its worst, so fingers crossed that it’s the case
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United States43902 Posts
After half a day of talks Vance has given up and is flying back to the US. Weird to declare a ceasefire for negotiations and then immediately give up on them, makes you wonder if the whole ceasefire thing was just a panic way of adding two weeks to the deadline after the terrorism threats failed.
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On April 12 2026 12:25 KwarK wrote:
After half a day of talks Vance has given up and is flying back to the US. Weird to declare a ceasefire for negotiations and then immediately give up on them, makes you wonder if the whole ceasefire thing was just a panic way of adding two weeks to the deadline after the terrorism threats failed.
Not surprised, this has been a trend. Have you noticed that whenever Trump meets in person with someone he's antagonized online (Zelensky, von der Leyden, Mamdani, etc) he immediately softens up his position, but whenever he sends his ass-kissing acolytes they get 0 diplomacy done cause they're entirely focused on proving to him how tough they are?
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Trump was handed this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal
With everything Trump gets totally for free and like a bliss from god, he shits his pants and breaks it.. and then he blames somebody else. His daddy's real estate empire, the casinos he build and swindled the contractors out of money, the taxes he kept through fraud...
Netanyahu needs ongoing war, so he can miss his court dates... and so JD blows negotiations after hundreds of diplomats worked hard to get them set up and literally handed them a way out of this war...whcih they don't even want to fight.. on a silver platter with a big ribbon on top.
"YEAH BUT THE NUKES!!"
There is no negotiations with this administration. You can't trust a single word from DJT or his goons ever. They are not sincere, they want liquified reality and say so openly
"Listen everything bad is Biden, and everything good is me, okay? can you say that?"
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What a surprise, making a deal is hard. I don’t know why someone didn’t work on that before. Thanks Obama.
Bunch of absolute clowns.
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On April 12 2026 04:12 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2026 03:52 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 12 2026 00:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On April 11 2026 06:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 06:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 03:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 11 2026 02:59 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 11 2026 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 10 2026 20:44 EnDeR_ wrote:[quote] So is that a 'yes, we need to get people on board to enact meaningful political change' or 'no, we just have to make it politically unviable + Show Spoiler + to the current leadership until they give in, because it doesn't matter what people think, it's the leadership that matters'? I said: How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's both (of what I said, not your version). The balance of which is dependent on many factors. So I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. + Show Spoiler +Not all that keen to discuss diamond or clothes. If you want to make the case for something, then make it. , ideally including the context on how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America, because I didn't get what you're getting at. That's what this was? How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing. It's also why I said: You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. And If you still don't understand, you can pick just about any "major political progress" moment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. Why didn't/don't you just do that? It seems you might understand that a "critical mass" isn't a fixed number (though the 3.5% thing has some historic support)? That chattel slavery is an example of how it can be a very small minority (and an unimaginably complicated/logistically challenging task)? That "convincing" people is done through leverage (which can be amassed in many ways)? Hence the lack of universal background checks despite it being one of the most bipartisan supported policies one can imagine? I'm not quite sure where I'm losing you or what you think you mean by "how this helps to get critical mass to get socialism going in America"? Look, I responded to biff's comment: + Show Spoiler +I have never understood who is supposed to do the revolution GH advocates. The chances the Americans of all people are interested in any of that socialist new world is exactly zero. They can’t even take the public transports. And noted that your behaviour is consistent with someone who believes that targeting the leadership is the important part. This is also something we have discussed before and you said something along the lines that it is unimportant to convince people that socialism is good for them because Americans just follow their leaders. I asked you if this was your position. To which you replied something about Nazis, chattel slavery, baby clothes and diamonds. I was confused by that answer and asked for clarification. To which you replied that you couldn't be any clearer. Like, if I thought your post was clear I wouldn't have asked for clarification? It's not that hard. I still don't know what your position is. So did I, before you. That's probably where you want to start instead of some vague memory of some interpretation of some position you think I might have held at some previous time. Despite that, I took my best guess at what you were imagining and told you my position. If I had to guess it was something about you not actually needing a majority to change things.
If we look at the abolition of chattel slavery (~1% of the population were abolitionists in 1861, many of which were women that couldn't vote) and universal background checks (~80-90%+ voter support for decades ) and just the logistics of what either requires, there's clearly more to all this than just "convincing the Americans" to vote right or whatever.
Trying to make this simple without being too reductive:
How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less tolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them.
That's sorta the basic equation for all significant political change and then we humans (and the universe or whatever) can mess with the variables depending on what's changing.
You can basically pick any major political "progress" moment and see this is how it works. It's not this recently propagandized idea of steady political party focused movement building aimed at electing the right politicians (or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason really). That's just not actually how it has ever worked. Diamonds for engagements, Pink being a girl color, Blue for boys, this elections based theory of change, and plenty of other stuff are relatively recent things that basically came out of propaganda agencies studying how the Nazis manipulated people to do what they did. Post-war consumerism taught people that identity is something you buy or wear rather than something you do through collective action.
We all know the diamond engagement ring is basically like one of the most successful early "in game skins" where the desire is almost entirely manufactured for profit at the expense of peoples critical faculties and yet... So I don't actually think most people will be disabused of their political diamond engagement rings through reason because they basically never have/rarely do (like 1 out of 100). The good news is that we can get stuff done regardless. I believe you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying not because it is difficult to understand or I'm being unclear, but because it is contrary to your existing worldview in a way you can't currently integrate. Similar to the Freire example I've mentioned before: + Show Spoiler +The following two examples will bring the point home: Henry Giroux and I gave a speech at Massasoit Community College in Massachusetts to approximately three hundred unwed mothers who were part of a GED (graduate-equivalency diploma) program. The director of the program later informed us that most of the students were considered functionally illiterate.
After Giroux's speech, during the question-and-answer period, a woman got up and eloquently said, "Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you." And Paulo Freire told me the story of what happened to him at the time he was preparing the English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He gave an African American student at Harvard a chapter of the book to read to see how she would receive it. A few days later when he asked the woman if she had read it, she enthusiastically responded, "Yes. Not only did I read it, but I gave it to my sixteen-year-old son to read. He read the whole chapter that night and in the morning said, 'I want to meet the man who wrote this. He is talking about me/ " One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible? But it’s not really that. ‘Is socialism desirable?’and ‘how do we get socialism?’ are very different questions I’d wager a good chunk of the thread understand these things, and if they had a magic wand would shift things considerably left, myself included. What do you mean "it" is not really "that"? I'm not really sure where I'm losing people because this is a remedial concept for the thread (granted they've chased away most of the people that understood it). It's not even specifically about socialism. Pretty much everyone here believes in a theory of change that's basically summarized as "steady political party focused movement building aimed at obtaining majorities for electing the right politicians (and/or convincing a majority of people to do the right thing through reason)" I'm pointing out that is not reality (this is a relatively new belief coming after, and in contrast to, the Civil Rights Movement) . How things actually change is that a large enough (note this can vary extremely widely) group of people/circumstances make it less intolerable to give them what they demand/change than to maintain the status quo and/or deny them Acting like a spoiler works if you have critical mass, no argument there, + Show Spoiler + the tea party did it and very successfully. The problem is when you don't have critical mass and acting like the spoiler just gets you more conservative policies (or whatever the appropriate label is these days, I can't keep up). Here, the fundamental problem is that Americans skew heavily right wing on average and socialism is basically a dirty word, so how do we get that critical mass? Being a spoiler has not worked because the numbers just aren't there - I would genuinely like to be wrong about this one, but I don't think I am. Let's take this one step at a time. While I suppose it could be a particular tactic under the umbrella of any leverage based theory of change, I'm not describing being a "spoiler". I'm addressing a fundamental misunderstanding about how things actually change in the US. Can we focus on clarifying that first?
If you are asking me how things are changing currently, I'd say it's got a lot more to do with billionaires owning most of the channels of communication which they use to bias towards their interests. That, coupled with a growing resentment in the population towards what they see as decades of liberal policies that are not delivering for them. People wanted change, a revolution of values if you will. You are not that different from Trump voters in this respect.
Socialism is just on the wrong side of that particular coin, so it's a particularly hard sell in the US.
In today's context, when it comes down to elections, you have one of three choices: (1) vote dem, (2) vote R or (3) withhold or vote third party - the spoiler choice. It is very obvious that voting dem is not delivering the progress that we want, no argument there.
So what do we do? You say, let's demand more from Dems. I'm on board. We can do this on two ways: we can primary people (electoralism as you say), or we can threaten to not vote (be the spoiler) until they give in to our demands. Say they don't do what we wanted because we are a minority opinion in the US and catering to us will lose them a bigger collective elsewhere in their assessment (they could be wrong or they could be right, let's not get into this one again). If we carry out our threat and spoil the election, we have moved farther from our goals.
The disconnect for me is that I don't see how spoiling elections wins you critical mass in today's climate; everything else is pushing in the opposite direction of socialism. You get politicians saturating the waves with anti-socialism message, enacting antisocialist policies that make it harder to enact future change. Social media gets chock full of reactionary garbage, boys are getting redpilled (did I use that right?) ; and it's just basic psychology that people just get used to this and it becomes the new normal; how do we get people to go socialist in this environment? They don't see socialist media posts, or if they do it's a meme making fun of them, there is no driving force, no natural channel to get people to socialism.
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EPT
