Interesting that rebuilding inner cities and helping disenfranchised minorities get out of poverty isn't numero uno on the priority list. GTFO if it isn't numero uno.

I'm fully aware that a governmental system established by the 1% is going to be a very effective tool against the best interests of the populace at large.

Even if the Dems had control of all branches of govt, we'd still be a long long way from accomplishing the goals that I have.

The point isn't what qualified success would look like. The point is what absolute abject failure would look like, which is "Reality, right now."

And listen: if OWS had been nothing but a bunch of wide-eyed crusties, nobody would care, you wouldn't be getting this kind of heat. But it had energy and momentum and a surprising amount of popular sympathy. And you pissed it all away on ****ing human megaphones and, apparently, legalising weed. GTFO. Go and get stoned and don't bother trying to do politics anymore. You are, literally, not helping.

Are you addressing me?

This level of ignorance and negativity from someone that has never participated in activism is pretty depressing and infuriating to read on a day when Donald Trump is being sworn in as president.

The tragic death of the democratic party indeed.

In terms of politics, absolutely nothing. I've given up on that.

I have participated in activism. As a natural-born Irish citizen resident in Ireland, I am ineligible for membership in the Democratic party, AFAIK. You, as either a previously banned poster or a paid disinformant, are familiar with many posters on this forum. But you don't know me.

The reason I was involved in campaigning for cannabis legalization was because it is part of the struggle to end the war on drugs, which is a tool mainly directed at the poor and people of color in our extremely racist criminal justice system.

Trump is president because of a system I didn't create, a system that I'm actively struggling against.

May I ask you how you were involved in OWS and what you've accomplished?

AllinFlynn,

You just attacked the dude for being a marijuana activist (among other things).

Hm, which community of people do you think would benefit the most from the decriminalization of marijuana? Think hard. Maybe look up some crime statistics. Maybe look up some prison statistics.

Seems like a pretty worth cause of activism that would contribute to lessening racial inequality in this country. As well of course just being a completely rational goal to pursue since marijuana is less destructive for society than the legal substances of alcohol and tobacco, but that is just icing.

But yeah man, trash the dude for trying to "free the weeed" bro! That is an excellent look.

Obama smoked a ton of weed. His daughter this year was smoking some weed. And yet so many lives are ruined over absurd marijuana laws. The fact he did not do more as POTUS to help minority communities and the poor with regard to legalization is a valid criticism of his administration.

But yeah, bash the marijuana activist. Shameful.

If I were to hazard a guess I'd reckon you were LedOut

I'm not really sure what you mean by a "true progressive," but I would probably be considered a neoliberal by most of them. I've worked with lots of progressives and other people much further to the left of me in NYC to elect Democrats, pass marriage equality, paid sick leave, legalize medical marijuana, and other important goals. I even remember corporatist, neoliberal Mayor Bloomberg standing with us Democrats in defense of religious freedom when Republicans tried to block a Muslim center and mosque from opening in lower Manhattan.

My values are much more aligned with progressive and Democratic values and policies than Republican. I want this partnership with progressives in the Democratic party, I think it has been successful and will continue to be so in the future, and that you are overreacting to a single election. Losing is tough, and there is a natural tendency for movements and parties to splinter in the aftermath as everyone looks for someone to blame. We should stick together though, we'll all be better off for it. Your statements about liberal and moderate Democrats are not justified, true, or wise.

How bad is the war on drugs in California? In particular, IYE, how bad is the theatre directed towards cannabis users? Because don't mistake me: I'm all for legal weed. It's just that partially rolling back the restrictions on cannabis use in California is a ****ing pitiful TR for OWS, given its potential. Pitiful.

I could become a hermit and say I was doing it to struggle against the system. My objective uselessness in that regard notwithstanding, I could say it, and maybe keep a straight face, maybe look people in the eye. Would still be basically useless, though.

I wasn't involved in OWS and I don't need to have been to legitimately criticise it. I was, modestly, active in successfully campaigning for Ireland to become the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by plebiscite. I am, modestly, active in presently campaigning for Ireland to exit the nineteenth century with regard to reproductive rights. None of which matters: I could secretly be a neo-Nazi and not a syllable of my critique would be invalidated.

No.

Yeah buddy. Between you and Asesino, I think it is clear which one of you "GTFO"-ing would be better for humanity.

Second swing at the same post, this edition content-free, rather than false content. Agendas are so limiting, aren't they?

I think you might be confused. I was clowning on Fly for sounding like bahbahmickey with his hot take on OWS. Fly asked me for a goal we had accomplished. I gave him one. It's not a comprehensive list of all of the goals we are struggling towards, nor is it a comprehensive list all things that grew out of OWS.

I agree that OWS did not reach it's full potential. I was there on the ground, working with other members of my community to make it a success. It didn't end up becoming everything that we hoped it would be. The world, my nation, my state, and my community does not currently reflect my vision of a just world, por ahora.

I thought it would be apparently obvious, but I will clarify that when I say that people that would have never voted for Prop 64 were influenced to change their stance on cannabis prohibition, that wasn't a one way street. During OWS, people who had previously been only focused on cannabis legalization came into direct contact with activists involved in the struggle for workers rights, womens rights, immigrants rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. Those people are now far more aware of how those struggles are intimately intertwined. We now have a higher likelyhood of success in these struggles because of this solidarity that was experienced both at that time and moving forward.


I appreciate your efforts in activism. I consider your efforts to to legalize SS marriage and to increase reproductive rights to be worthy goals that I share with you. I've never been to Ireland, but if I can ever be of assistance from out here in CA, let me know.

OK, so what else have you achieved?

I wonder if it's possible to neither be a centrist who lines up with wahoo to run over the stupid dirty hippies nor refuses to register or votes for Jill Stein.

I'm more than happy to answer this question. Before I do though, is there a specific accomplishment or a specific number of accomplishments at which point this won't be your follow up question?

Populism is part of a chemical reaction, not a static political identity. I didn't realize until the MAGAing that the OWS education of the masses backfired horribly.

I have no idea what you mean, but the populism on the right was the Tea Party and the GOP didn't throw the Tea Party under the bus. Perhaps that made the GOP worse, but Ayn Ryan joined the HoR in 1998, Newt Gingrich made the Contract With America in 1994 and Richard Nixon dropped the equivalent of 33 Hiroshima bombs on Cambodia by 1974, so it's hard to tell what's worse than all of that.

The Democrats otoh despise their populists, I guess unless they get their once in the whole history of the United States kind of leader and even then, that leader who they love so much now tells you that it was the meek support of the liberal that might be the biggest obstacle to progress.

As you were educating the masses during OWS, what would you say were hi lights/low lights? What teach ins did you participate in? What would you say you would have changed or improved about your participation?

Heh, the 1st sentence or the 2nd?

Ok, I'm being slightly facetious with 'backfired horribly' but I'm speaking to the unholy trinity of a person being a Paul-Sanders-trump supporter, a childish embrace of populism for populism's sake. It wasn't until post-election that I truly grasped such a thing, to that degree, was even possible. Surely a populism junkie would draw an I-won't-do-that line in the search for their next fix, right?

Likewise, and admittedly this is indulging in some results-oriented thinking, given the results of the election it seems obvious the pseudopopulists threw HRC under the bus, not vice versa. For people to even entertain the notion that trump wasn't a bigger threat to left-wing-populism and leftist ideals than HRC, by orders of magnitude, represents a thorough and abject communication breakdown and failure to educate on how any of this works. But they did. Some Bernie supporters spent the finite minutes of their lives protesting the DNC, a thing I feel insane even typing.

In case it's not obvious, I count myself as one of those OWS people failing on some level.

To me the Bernie->Trumpers are unfathomable and I know they were essentially non-existent among the irl Bernie supporters around here. But they were never voting for Hillary whether Bernie ran or not.


Maybe the hundred million people who didn't vote for anyone had something to do with it.

My post wasn't directed to you actually and I think there's some funny confusion but I'll answer anyway.

My regret is looking at OWS as my 'retirement' where I no longer had to be the 1 crazy guy talking about wealth inequality, and what 'means of production' really means in a post-post-marxist world, and quasisocialist things like UBI and why all the civil rights leaders and black power guys were some manner of socialist, and technoprogressivism (...hey guys did you ever wonder HOW and WHY all science fiction dystopias are libertarian/anarchist wet dreams and utopias are some sort of nondescript relaxed socialist ideal...), and so on. I have a dozen little parables and fables I wrote (no, srsly, with titles like The Four Person Country and The Story Of The Baby Giraffe) to try and illustrate these ideas in my own way. I was like, ok, this is part of the national conversation now, nice, you guys can take it from here.