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Trump Is Reportedly Sending Israel $2.8 Billion in Bombs. You're Paying for Them (www.rollingstone.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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paywall removed: https://archive.ph/lPnUo

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[–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

Cool. Vote out the party leadership then.

That's literally what I'm trying to do. And I need help. We need more people in the process so that the leadership can be voted out if it doesn't reflect us. The 'both sides' comments discourage others from getting involved. That's what I pushed back on way back at the top of this thread.

What's the other method, if not civic engagement? You seem to be hung up on the first half of my personal plan of less bad now while making more better later. I get that you think both sides are bad; but I think one side is less bad in general, and I see that making that party better requires more people to be part of it.

You seem to have given up on the idea it can be better. I haven't. You said at the top that you had projects in your community that you were working on. Do they promote civic engagement, or are they palliative care for a terminal patient?

Given some of your phrasing, I don't even think you are in the US, which is fine, but means we are talking more about the mechanics of politics than the details of US politics (though I get that they effect you; which is why the 'get out' part of your plan doesn't work in my opinion).

My plan:

  1. Be involved in local decisions. Join my precinct and either go or send people I trust to the district meetings. Support and vote for local candidates like mayor and city council, sheriff, dog catcher.
  2. Encourage others online to do the same and push back when people discourage engagement. <-- we are here
  3. (this one would be neat) Mold my city/county/state into a beacon of hope, where the government works for the people and is no longer captured by self-interest. Mamdani in New York is a pretty good example of what I mean, but that requires not just support in the populace, but also support in the rest of the government to allow them to function.
  4. Get enough people in the districts to send people to the states to send people to the nation to elect people who aren't millionaires to positions of power in the party.
  5. Elect House, Senate and Presidents that are not millionaires or ancient and have the values of the people again.

You seem to think I'm stuck at #2 forever. Which is discouraging. Which is why I keep pushing back.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    That's literally what I'm trying to do.

    Aren't you literally voting for them in the general, with your lesser evil strategy?

    You're conflating your strategy with civic engagement, as if that begins and ends with getting the vote out for Kamala.

    You seem to have given up on the idea it can be better.

    Not at all. I spend much of my time working on developing community projects for food, sharing, and the like - including software to enable those to work together (https://neighborsgoods.com/).

    I don't think things will get better in the US with your strategy - and as I've stated multiple times now, it's because I've been a part of that too many times. It is self-contradictory. We see that even here, where you're telling me you're voting them out by voting for them.

    Please consider what you're doing, and spend your efforts in a more productive way.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    as if that begins and ends with getting the vote out for Kamala.

    But that is explicitly not what I'm advocating for. I have described multiple times that it doesn't stop there. I want people to be *engaged* and I think that 'both sides'-isms make people depressed and give up; and I think more people engaged can solve the issues we face. I also fear that we might have passed the point where it can be fixed, but as this thread proved, I'm a bit stubborn.

    spend your efforts in a more productive way.

    I think the best way to spend my time is encouraging people to be visibly for something. Protest, Canvass, better yet, run for an office you think isn't well served (I'm doing some of those things while I think up these responses! Multitasking!). Maga was pretty good at that. I can't even see a red hat anymore without associating and there are several sportsball teams with a red primary color that probably don't like that now. I'll even posit that normal people engaging in the republican spaces is good too. I think both parties have been compromised by wealth and they would serve us instead if they had more people in them in general. At least on the democratic side, the people present set the rules so more of us means we can change the rules to serve us.

    Earlier today/yesterday:

    The GOP firmly in control of the government

    I get where you're coming from. But I think we have a disagreement here. Sure the "GOP" is in control, but what's really happened - in my opinion - is that *money* is in control.

    and Dude. Dude.. Dude...

    The more of us that are not money that are involved in the process, the more control WE get. Telling people it doesn't matter discourages involvement, and involvement is how I think things get better.

    That's my point.

    Your website seems neat. I'm on BuyNothing and they have a similar concept - with yours being more service based rather than effectively just recycling. I can't quite tell, since I can't sign up without sending email. I'd recommend some sort of 'find communities near you' that you can at least view without signing in; you might get more people who have a need connected with someone. But I'm also 100% behind taking people with a skill who have time and want to help and matching them with people that need help.

    Edit: My Lemmy instance was down for a day and didn't post this until recently. Hence the weird timestamps.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    Familiar with BuyNothing - actually one of the future projects the platform has is to make adapters to treat BuyNothing groups as another library for federation.

    Because, when you think about it, a gift is just a loan that doesn't expire, so it fits in nicely.

    We will have finders for things, we're still on our first instance for development is why.

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