Beyond that, there are places where radicalism is now necessary, such as the environment or the police state. We've already procrastinated away our luxury of measured gradualism on these things, and if the price is unrest it's one we've already agreed to pay, one way or another. The problem is that without someone willing to consider radicalism that price may just not end up being paid in the name of political amorphousness, thereby condemning us to the actual full impacts.
I agree with most of what MSH said here, but this part especially. We're really at a historic make or break point. We can't afford to tolerate status quo shit anymore.
I would be willing to accept gradual change and long games that play out over generations on plenty of issues that may cause horrible amounts of death and suffering - things like the economy, war for profit, bigotry, etc - but don't cause irreversible damage to the survivability of the human race. While it runs counter to my nature and I will normally put up a fight over it, I can hypothetically entertain the notion that, for example, it's better to accept millions of people dying of poverty-related causes every year while we slowly reform capitalism and international politics than to plunge the world into chaos by attacking the foundations of our economic functioning and power structures. If someone could give me a cohesive argument on how it contributes to a long-term strategy instead of just a retreat, I could vote for the lesser of two evils on these issues.
But I really see the environment as a different beast here that should be forcing our hands. Over the past few years, I've seen the tone of information on this subject shift from "We need to immediately re-structure our society to stop damaging the environment, because we're close to a point of no return" to "We've activated enough positive feedback mechanisms that if we ceased actively damaging the environment at this point, it wouldn't be enough. We have to not only do that, but open the risky pandora's box of geo-engineering to start reversing the damage we've done if we're going to survive."
We have a time limit on tackling this issue, and it's within our lifetimes, if not the next couple decades. On other issues, we suffer a toll until it's fixed. On the environment, we fix it within this time limit or we lose it all. No more civilization.
And for quick comparison, Hillary has taken shitloads of money from fossil fuel donors, and has been actively involved in the expansion of fracking and offshore drilling. While she acknowledges climate science, I see very little real action on the environment in her history.
On the other hand, I don't find anything in Bernie's closet, and note that he's introduced bills actively attacking fossil fuel subsidies.
But that's not even what's important. Saving the environment doesn't just mean taking a tougher stance on legislation that directly addresses it. It means really getting our shit together as a species. My kids are not going to have a future, without a massive cultural shift in the next couple decades. Economy, authoritarianism, bigotry, etc all feed into this. First, because the environment is an abstract, distant feeling issue that people are not going to make a priority when they're worried about whether their bank account will support them today, or if bigotry is going to target them today. Second, because getting the kind of change we need rolling is going to be a hell of a fight against existing power structures, and the common people do not have anywhere near the means to fight those power structures as they are now - rabidly violent, obsessively watchful, over-equipped beyond all reason, and hateful towards the left.
It is impossible to build the kind of movement we need in this environment.
And yeah, the president doesn't have much direct influence on those issues, but it would take unprecedented drastic legislation to effect meaningful change anyway (token pledges to reduce emissions by X amount over the next 30 years will not cut it), when we're expecting an obstructionary congress. So in my opinion, we shouldn't even be worrying about which candidate might be able to quietly pull the right strings to scratch out some tiny bits of progress while the world unravels at an increasing pace around us. We need to focus on building a massive cultural shift. We need to shatter the overton window. As the figurehead of the most powerful nation in the world, the president is the political figure with the most power to contribute to this. Someone who is personally bland, and reeks of establishment and your standard repertoire of conflicting interests has no chance of doing this. We need someone who will call bullshit with passion, display integrity, maintain focus, and trigger mass mobilization to fight for change on all fronts. Someone who will openly denounce the mass surveillance, police oppression, and class warfare that prevents grassroots movement building, and will populate their administration and executive appointments with fighters, not corporate executives enjoying their revolving door. Someone who will get people to start thinking about throwing their bodies on the gears.
Does Bernie have this capacity? I don't know. But he's the only candidate this year who I believe would be a step in this direction. And if we're not going to take that step, then we need some other form of shock. Mucking about with the status quo because we're afraid of things getting worse is literally just waiting to die.
I really don't have much hope, though. My most realistic aspiration is to move to Canada, hope that things stay nice up there long enough for my kids to live out decent lives, and hope that they don't have kids of their own.
Author
Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée (Read 1584899 times)