You're not inaccurate Dada, on any of that. Pretty much all of the positive changes we've become accustomed to in our lives have been gotten through grassroot movements pushing against the tide very arduously and slowly, and it's only through the untiring efforts that anything really does get done. The reason that pisses so many people off is because it's rare people want to be willing to put effort towards something that won't have a result that is both speedily tangible and controllable. That's simply unrealistic. I may have a lot of disdain towards those that are out there chipping away at social progression due to their non-inclusive nature and heavy-handed beliefs, but fact of the matter is they're the ones making the differences. Average people who don't know anything about politics, legislation, all that jazz and simply base their beliefs on what they read on the internet and what the news says more often than not AREN'T doing much in the ways of ensuring their fellow citizen, both today and tomorrow, has a better opportunity to lead a successful life than they themselves had.

But on that last note, that's the part you are most right about - a lot of people DO want things to become so abysmal that a real revolution becomes more likely. Hell, a lot of people these days seem almost EXCITED at the prospect. Many (typically young folks) feel things have gotten so bad that it's better if we just TAKE THE MAN OUT AND OVERTHROW THE WHOLE MOTHERFUCKING THING WOO but these people are also those who did not live through wars, have not really lived in any sort of actual social upheaval besides small-scale stuff that doesn't truly break into their day-to-day lives. And one of the main reasons for that is a lot of people want to feel like they were personally a part of something, like they themselves affected change that they can tell their grandchildren about. But that's not the age we live in, this isn't the 60s and you can chase those days as much as you please but it doesn't change the fact that we operate in different times. Things happen differently now, we're working against a far more sophisticated hegemony that is QUITE effective at keeping the base-line population contented at least enough that they aren't willing to rock that boat - not unless they're going to rock it ALL the way, in such a way we can all jump in streets and cheer and have a great time without really having to do any actual suffering.

We're a go big or go home generation - we want it our way, and if we can't have it we're more likely to not be a part of it. And given that most of these movements are led and directed by far wiser people than the kid wearing the Guy Fawkes mask yelling at an Occupy movement, they become upset that their individual voices are not the ones being heard.

I dunno though, that's just my take on it.

@gloomy djinni that is actually quite depressing, has it really become that any mass movments really amount to nothing? and that anything we do want to change has such a low value that it would take EVERY one before change is inacted?  You know what's really sad? that people now days have so little to live for that they feel they have to do this just so they have somthing to do and somthing to say that they were apart of history... ach i'd better stop talking about this, it's so fucking depressing it's making me think bad thoughts.

It's not necessarily that mass movements amount to nothing, it's that they never start as mass movements. They all start on a grass roots level, unless there is some circumstance such as war breaking out or a newly imposed dictatorship or something like that.

Otherwise, all great change begins with the efforts of a small band of people. That doesn't necessarily jive unfortunately with people who want to be able to create a Facebook group, expect that millions of people are just going to agree and show up, and everything will afterwards just be better.

Edit: I should note that that's how things typically work here in this part of the world, anyways. I don't think I'm really qualified to speak on how it would go down abroad.

Well, in britain, when we're pissed we riot.

My personal opinion on that is that if there are other folks in other countries getting shot and bombed to hell and fighting tooth and nail just to SURVIVE. Then what the fuck right do I or any other citizen seeking a tangible change have to just walk around with a sign and a thumb up my ass feeling proud about myself when in the end it will do absolutely nothing? Because it won't, yes someone might make a shift or aknowledge for a brief period that I had something to say but then when it gets quiet again, go right back to fucking me and my own.

An example must be set, there must be a point where we say no and let it be known we mean business. Its how this country was founded and how it needs to be re-established. Reform fixes a problem it doesn't fix a broke ass system built into destroying the little man.

So all in all, you're right. I feel I live too comfortably and I feel guilty as hell for that. I don't deserve the comfort and complacancy that is all around me. I want something that matters. I want to feel like the world I live in matters, that the people in it are important and not just a bunch of ants in a hill to be controlled.

I don't deserve the comfort and complacancy that is all around me.

I don't think it is an issue of deserve or not deserve, it is what you were born into. If anything, everyone deserves comfort and the ability not to have to worry about whether they will get their next meal - this is the complacency you described. However...

I want something that matters. I want to feel like the world I live in matters

What you have to realize is that this is subjective. Aside from that, it is your responsibility to make the world matter to you if that's what you want. The world won't just change itself for the better, but that also doesn't mean you have to be disappointed because you haven't joined a rebellion to overthrow the government and put a better one in place. As sappy as this sounds, if you want to feel like the people in the world matter, then accept they are people. If you feel bad that you live in comfort while others do not, you don't have to run to Africa and become part of the Red Cross or something, walk down to your local soup kitchen and help out.

Other people and the government you live under are somewhat out of your control, but your own actions are not. You are unlikely to become the next Che Guevara and help lead a revolution to overthrow oppression, but you can be a good person to other people and help them when they need it. Your actions may not "matter" on some huge cosmic scale, but they will certainly matter to the people you help.

where the fuck are the real leftists at?

Not many people in America would be considered "real leftists", I would say. Even the young people who are able to break out of the conservative haze that has fallen over America since like, forever, are typically what you would call "stupid yuppies" because for the most part, all they know about leftist ideologies is what they have been spoon fed and in that way they are the same as the conservatives who don't question what is handed to them and react angrily when presented with an alternative viewpoint.

It is unlikely America will suddenly take a turn to the left, but people can be grounded in realism and promote open discussion rather than factionalism. Unfortunately when someone starts talking about leftist ideas, or any political ideas, really, it frequently devolves into a situation of two camps of people standing opposite of each other and name-calling, and it has become all to common an occurance for the smart or well read people to then leave the debate because it is often much more work to attempt to bring the camps back to the rational plane. It doesn't help that conservatism in America continues to devolve further and further into anti-intellectualism and complete distrust of anyone who appears to know what they are talking about.

lmao @OccupyLA recently tweeted that "the main goal of the occupy movement is not anti-corporation, it's anti-people-who-are-bad-at-capitalism" or some stupid shit. my faith in the movement has dropped 500%. where the fuck are the real leftists at? farren was right when he said there's too many stupid yuppies in this movement.

LA and the rest of semi-urban california is a wasteland, I wouldn't be surprised if they officially started supporting ron paul or ross perot or anonymous. what are they even occupying? the mowed lawns of concrete and terracotta mcmansion villas? the getty center?

edit: occupy orange county

well at least they're occupying themselves i guess... *returns to knitting*

I'm not gonna pretend to know more about this than you do, but when I mean "doing something" I mean getting people to demand specific things that they've desired for sometimes decades but never received. The typical example being universal single-payer healthcare which has had a majority support for at least over a decade now if not longer.

What I don't get is your opposition to reformism. The only reason why people are no longer working 12-hour work days for wages that still leave their children practically starving and sometimes doesn't even get paid out is because of social reformism. There are tons of examples of important battles that were won through the use of labor activism and I don't doubt the main reason things have been in such a steady decline is because organized labor has been crippled and demonized beyond the point at which it can have any meaningful impact. Unions have practically been captured, membership is at an all-time low. And I don't know of any other way to get things like this done except through massive organized popular demand.

Maybe I'm complete naive about these things and please tell me if I am, but at this point I'm beginning to think people are opposed to reformism because they want things to become so completely abysmal that a real revolution becomes more likely.

I'll ask again: What do you specifically mean, on a practical level, by "doing something"? Who would the people demand universal single payer healthcare from? Would that mean working within electoral politics? etc.


I'm not completely opposed to 'demands' in general(in fact we do a lot of em in an org i'm involved with), but in the context of "occupy" I never really see the use in presenting demands because all that will do is narrow the focus and provide an opportunity for all the horrible "experts" to swoop in and turn the thing into an obama 2012 campaign. i think the political lessons learned by people confronting police violence and fighting to hold physical space/providing for each other(food and whatnot)/practicing in forms of direct democracy and direct action are much more valuable than promising people free healthcare if they vote democrat with the rest of the nonprofit scum.

i mean i could write a whole lot about why i oppose reformism/the unions but i can already see now that it'll result in us talking past each other judging from your last point. frankly i don't really see much value in attempting to convince you otherwise but if you really want to know where i'm coming from i just suggesting checking out the links I posted up there earlier.

i guess to sum it up with a quote from one of them:
"to live in a condition of lessened exploitation is not the end of revolutionary aspiration and it is demonstrably not the means either"

i didn't mean that in like a mean way or anything(like fuck u random guy) but just like it would really require really really long discussion about history and theory that i dont have the energy for

I don't know about this. The problem is political discourse has been poisoned very badly by corporate controlled media/various business interests and so nobody really even knows what leftism actually is.

Being a "real" any politic is understanding the ideas you believe in and the people who first thought them up and then understanding how that ideology fits into your life and how it can coexist with other ideas. I don't really buy your idea that people are actually leftists underneath it all and just need a good push in the right direction. Many people who are conservatives (read Americans) are that way out of tradition or habit, because their parents were or their social circle is. If your ideas are set by your parents or your social circle and you do not question them, then this willful ignorance is part of who you are. It is part of who you are. The reason religious conservatism is popular is because there are plenty of easy rules to follow "you will be anti-abortion", "you will be nationalist", "you will hold Christianity in high regard". It is easy to be involved in this political faction because you don't have to think about it or know why you say the things you say, you know what you are for and against and you don't question, you don't need to question because there will always be a mass of people who are just as ignorant and ready to defend your ignorance aggressively.

My point is, the people who are conservatives are predisposed to be conservatives by their environment. They are predisposed because they have been taught not to question and there is considerable positive reinforcement on them to remain that way; this social pressure does not go away when the people around them are removed. They believe these things, they didn't logically arrive at the conclusion, they hold them to be true without proof or explanation. This isn't something you could change by isolating them or explaining it logically. You could change it by indoctrinating them with your own ideas, by getting together enough leftists and replacing the positive reinforcement with negative, but then, that's just as bad as what has already been done to them. The only way for them to truly change their ideas is to change them based on their own over time, but there is no place you can isolate them for that time to remove them from the pressure to be American. I say American because it is deeply part of what it means to be an American today to be conservative in comparison to, say, Europe. Just because many young people seem to be calling for change or disagreeing with the system doesn't mean that in 10 years they will be the same way. Society has a way of generally retarding change, especially ones designed by Constitutions to have mechanisms to prevent it.

i think what is equally important to people in being 'conservative' or whatever is the economic basis that allowed them to be that way. I mean when you grew up in a period where it was possible to have a good life so long as you worked hard and coasted off your white privilege in middle america it's really easy to be a religious conservative esp. if you're brought up that way. nowadays I think that whole paradigm is just vanishing; the whole idea where you can be a carpenter or factory worker for 20 years, own a house, provide for a family, and retire like your parents is just not the way things really work anymore. people are flooding into the urban centres in unprecedented numbers and all that whole mentality is disappearing fast. I'm not sure if the whole "american" ideology is as firmly rooted as some people seem to think, young people tend to shake that shit pretty fast when they move to larger cities and are faced with circumstances where they have to rely on things like food assistance and financial aid(for students).

all that ideological horseshit seems to disappear once people are faced with reality and the hardships of being in a horrible precarious situation like a lot of young people are in today

First a question, some one mentioned that reagan abolished the working class, how do you abolish a group of people? ban them from existance? explain that one to me, is it a refrence i just don't get?

It was increased dismantling of workers rights in favour of big business and a major promotion of the 'middleclass dream' where you too can live in the suburbs with your oversized buick, garden parties every week and children going to soccer practice. Getting into thousands of dollar of debt is fine, because you can have a garden! You can wear designer clothes! You can shake your booty at fashionable night clubs and drink wine! You can make all of your decisions under the influence of cocain! See that homeless guy, those children not recieving a proper education, the parents who can barely afford bread, Fuck them! don't let them near you, your perfectly quiffed hair and you powersuit! They pbviously ain't working hard enough to get THE BIG BUCKS! Prettymuch everyone sees themselves as middle class.
Also extensive tax breaks and loosening of restrictions on big business, strong anti-union stance, increasing power to the born-again neo conservatives, supporting south american coups which overthrew democracies and installed authoritatian regimes with favourable trade rates to the US, reduction of free speach and mccarthy style blacklisting of left-wing or 'subversive' musicians, writers and such, didn't do much to help anyone really.
A good example of Reagan culture is a film from the 70's, network, which seemed to predict exactly what happened in the 80's. Check it out, it's great.

Reagan prettymuch destroyed any chance of America having a valid left wing movement, and the whole country's culture and perception was moved towards GOD AND MONEY, whereas before, the rich and famous were still viewed with a level of contempt due to their extravagant and 'amoral' lives, now they are demigods, who clearly worked hard at THE AMERICAN DREAM. It's at the point where like 99% of american 'lefties' would still be classed as far-right over here in the UK, Ken livingstone, former mayor of london was a communist, the labour party has it's roots in communist and socialist movements (even though many of them later u-turn into capitalists unfortunately), the majority of the lib-dems (who are mostly against the coalition) strongly support the idea that the government should support the people rather than the big business. Essentially we have quite a valid left-wing scene here, that is popular enough that it can make a difference, just they need to unify and not split in an absurd fashion akin to the people's front of judea in the life of brian. Though I guess highly respected politicians such as George Galloway shouldn't appear on reality TV pretending to be a cat. The GLC was formed under socialist principles, we have (at the moment, but unlikely to stay if cameron gets re-elected) a public health service, which is respected around the world apart from here and in america, who somehow see it as evil and an invasion of people's rights. The current government is ridiculously right-wing though, but it's really helping foster support for us lefties, and not just in the form of an intillectual elite like it seems to be in america. During the 'credit crunch', Das Kapital became a best seller. Fuck, even the majority of mainstream comedians are registered socialists and anti-monarchists.

I think the kind of problems with the occupy movement, is that it has a large support from the middle class. Though this could give it some validity in the eyes of those in power who have nothing but contempt for the working class, it also seems very hypocritical, because they have played a large part in making the current situation. And also it has a large support by the anarchist nutjobs, and the facebook group for the occupy movement is really shitty. Conspiracy theories,are pretty rampant. I mean, it criticises the far-right too, but seems very centre-wing, and ultimately that'll mean nothing will get seriously changed, people will be happy if they just do small changes and then return to the middle class lifestyle. Also a high number of young-adult lefties tend to become ultra-conservative during their 30's, when they become middle-management and oh so middle class.

Ron Paul's ideas of isolationist policies are downright absurd. Isolationism is one heck of an extreme far-right policy that fosters racism and reduces international trade, thus effectively ruining the economy. America's best hope is to really increase trade with south american countries, especially the left-wing ones such as Cuba (which will actually help reduce anti-americanism due to the world-wide condemnation of america's illegal boycott). As controversal as it is, I think the us should pay more attention of Cuba. While politically it's dubious, they have state funded education any a highly regarded healthcare system (Che was a trained doctor and during the revolution, would treat villagers' illnesses and injuries, prettymuch inspiring the population to become doctors with his magnificance). Many doctors emigrate to america to work there, because they are so highly trained. America also needs to stop with it's slave labour in the form of corporation sponsored prisons, which pay judges money for every person they send to prison, creating an incentive for them to punish innocent people in the name of the mighty dollar.

eek, I think I just ranted a bit too much, but fuck it.