Filling in Birdman's analogy:

Birdman simultaneously insists that:

(1) organizational contribution is the correct/essential component of political advancement

&

(2) organizational contribution is a meaningless component of economic merit

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/sl...ee-plantation/

still didn't read it, but it sounds like it was...

herbie: dems are better than repubs

bird: ok sure, but thats not the point

i think i might have seen that argument before somewhere in this thread.... maybe...

So once a topic has been discussed in thread you on principle refuse to read any further discussion of it or you just assume that no one could possibly make additional points about it that might influence your thinking? That seems shortsighted imo

I’m still waiting for a coherent reason, let alone a compelling one, why someone with your general worldview would decide that it literally doesn’t matter at all which party makes the rules that everybody has to live by despite thinking that one of those parties would make rules that you agree with more than the other party just because that party doesn’t align with your position on something when the other party doesn’t either.

It’s an incredibly privileged and in my opinion myopic position to say that all these other things that actually matter to real people don’t matter enough for you to do the one thing that you can do to actually influence the results on those issues without harming the issues you care about at all

all i do is rehash old arguments! over and over and over and...

it was just last night i was drunk af and in agony over runbad. i texted my friend "im tired af, picking up at my bb" then i lost 300bb in next two hands then i saw you and bm had a zillion posts and didn't feel like reading them all

"literally doesn't matter at all" i never argued that. i don't think bm has either. it matters, but not enough to vote for a dem.

the rules that one party makes over another being better... to me and bm the difference isn't enough to vote for. to you and eyebooger it is enough to vote for.

you say it's incredibly privileged and myopic to vote for gloria la riva. i say it's incredibly privileged and myopic to vote for hilary clinton. you're thinking of women who have to drive to another state to get an abortion. i'm thinking of kids getting bombs dropped on them.

it's hard to imagine how you can think it's not coherent or compelling that dems and repubs are united in destroying democracy, dedicated to billionaires ruling us with their boots on our throats, corporations and armies strangle hold on the globe. and that is an unsustainable system.

[x] coherent
[x] compelling
[ ] easier abortions

i also like how the guy that hates capitalism so much that he doesnt have time to protest it

The argument really boils down to having a realistic understanding of how different the Democratic Party and the GOP are and a realistic understanding of how much of a difference voting can make. Filthy and I (and many others) understand the two parties represent a duopoly where they represent the same group of people and largely agree on 99% of how to govern. We also understand how ineffectual electoral politics is when it does not allow you to change the status quo power structure. You still leave money concentrated in the hands of a small minority and thus given the overwhelming power.

This argument does not say: there is literally no difference between the parties

This argument does not say: voting making literally no difference

What it says is that if you want to make real, lasting change, you are going to have to try something more than voting to get it.

Great quote from Chomsky: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

billions(literally) of us serfs don't have time or energy to fight capitalism because we are too exhausted from working non stop to survive. meanwhile the billionaires profit from our labor

Birdman is Mets new obsession. I’m here for the months long campaign of passive aggressiveness!

lol yeah Marx actually makes a point that capitalism is specifically structured to disallow the proletariat to become politically engaged. One way is that they have to spend all their time working

I haven’t forgotten about a few posts addressed to me in here btw, and I’m going to answer them. I just haven’t had time the last few days.

Side note- it’s a distinctly male POV that the dems and reps make no discernible difference to real peoples lives

There are pretty huge differences if you’re a woman, and it’s not debatable IMO

This is a white feminist viewpoint, and, as is typical of white feminism, erases the existence of millions of women who believe otherwise and have fought for this belief

im probably wrong on this, but weren't republicans pretty pro choice until they decided they needed to go after the religious vote by being against abortion?

No not really

fwiw, my gf is with birdman on this one. and i'm with her too

There is even MORE of a difference between the two if you are a non-white woman in America. You both have it backward.

And fwiw, I was feeling something similar to Herbie when you did that hangnail/train analogy, and was met with a sneer and a huff.

You are constantly accusing people of not being able to see the forest for the trees, but you Birdman are also guilty of that sometimes, this being one of them.

I was thinking the exact same thing as your second paragraph.

Bird, you saying there is no functional difference between the dems and repubs on how they govern is a real slap in the face to all the women who have worked tirelessly to improve their lot fighting for democratic principals to prevail in our two party system. If and when the reps have full control of the supreme court and abortion is overturned, don't expect a ton of women to join up in your crusade against imperialism after they read that you couldn't be ****ing arsed to help keep them from forced childbirth because "both sides are 99% the same."

How forrest for the trees will you be feeling when your crusade is made up entirely of men?

native american women are the most vulnerable demographic in america. i'm sure they care very much about abortion and women's issues. but democrats are doing nothing to address the obscene % of native women who are killed, raped, beaten.

and of course doing nothing/next to nothing to address their extreme poverty


african american women, mexican american women, desperately poor white american women also have major grievances with the dems

not to mention women around the world. dem party obviously awful to 99.9% of them

you play cards for a living

Every single one of those groups are far worse off under Rep policies

it's not a distinctly male view. my gf is not male, and she has that view. same with the billions of women i just described in my last post

A quote from Helen Keller (one of my favorite socialists), who is, in fact, a woman.

Also, this. Just very flippant and insulting the way he is framing things right now.