It's almost as if voting (very deliberately) doesn't actually impact what goes on behind the scenes (where capitalists control government), and that this happens no matter which of the 2 "teams" you vote for (or are we pretending that when dems use drones to bomb brown children it for "freedom"?)..
This is a pretty childish view. Both sides will do some things you dislike does not mean nothing changes.
You should read the playbook the heritage foundation is writing for 2024. It is goddamn terrifying.
Yes, both parties will have policies that we dislike. It's almost like the primaries, the mechanisms that control how a party acts, tend to be dominated by elders while our younger and more progressive members don't participate and instead complain that both parties are the same.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. As long as the older generations outvote us, the outcomes will reflect their wishes.
outcomes will reflect their wishes.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren't on the table though, and that's what's destroying the planet and justifying exploitation, there's a consensus between the parties on that. That's why the political topics up for debate (or ones masquerading as politics) are increasingly cultural issues. They may affect the distribution of certain people within this structure, or they may help ensure the "right people" are hurting within it, but the basic economic arrangement you find yourself in as a worker for instance remain unaffected. You don't succeed? That's an individual issue. Your justified and rational emotional reactions to this system are negative? That's an individual issue as well, maybe there's even a mental health outreach program to address this.
IMO change ultimately has to come from outside the system as the stresses it inflicts become increasingly unbearable, and the recent increases in aggressive labor actions are a sign of this, just like has happened in the past. That doesn't mean strategic voting is totally meaningless either. People have to accept things aren't good first though, else why would they be motivated to change things. Pretending everything is okay if you just vote the right way, or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire, is completely counterintuitive to affecting change.
I'm going to respond to both your responses in one.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren’t on the table though, and that’s what’s destroying the planet and justifying exploitation
You've got a few things tangled together.
No, undoing capitalism is not on the table, nor is that desired by the majority of the population.
The planet destroying, at least the climate change part, a carbon tax is a simple effective solution we've known about for years. Other countries are implementing their own version. Now, something like that isn't really on the table yet in America simply because the Left cannot win a sizeable majority and instead barely ekes out a win against one of the worst people imaginable (after losing to said monstrosity.)
People have to accept things aren’t good first though
or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire
Criticizing is important, that's how we get new and better candidates. Demanding better conditions is important. But, to go and say that voting is meaningless because both parties are the same is **exactly **what you want to do if you want to maintain the status quo. You must see that there's a difference between the two?
If people 40 and younger voted at the same rate as those 41 and older, I imagine the Democrats would have a supermajority, would be able to pass more climate legislation (though for what it's worth, the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation in decades) and a host of other meaningful reforms. Instead, we have to beg Joe goddamn Manchin. It's like when people complain about being fat but refuse to change their diet or exercise.
Democrats would have a supermajority
They have control in California and could implement class programs like socialized healthcare there, but they don't because they are funded by private business interests who don't want to lose profits.
Being left means being anti-capitalist, if you are supporting capitalist political goals that's a conflict of interest.
If you honestly think that California could, singlehandedly introduce a fundamentally different healthcare system than the rest of the country... I mean, wow. That's just... Not at all how things work.
Politics is a lot easier to talk about when you aren't constrained by reality although that talk doesn't mean much.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services, it's very doable for states to implement healthcare legislation. It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services
You understand that's fundamentally different than transforming into universal healthcare, right? You might as well say that I am qualified to run google as I've used search AND have a gmail account.
It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
Are you actually comparing a right to abortion with implementing universal healthcare? Really?
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US and states vary greatly in how they regulate healthcare. There is nothing stopping California Democrats from implementing publicly funded healthcare other than they don't want to do this because it runs contrary to the interest of their donors and PACs. State funded programs already provide primary care in cases where people aren't served by FFS. This even goes to municipal-level public health clinics. The idea a state government can't provide healthcare funding to it's citizens is contrary to programs that already exist. Expanding public health clinics and having the government negotiate fees with practitioners is absolutely doable because it already happens.
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US
No one said there was?
But honestly... Well, it reminds me of when I was a really young kid and I watched soccer. I couldn't understand why the players ran really fast sometimes and couldn't just do that all the time.
That's sort of what this argument sounds like.
It's about as compelling as your nonsensical decision that protecting the right to abortion was pretty much the same as instituting a radically different form of healthcare.
I think this has been as productive as it's going to be. Cheers.
The amendment passed in Ohio is determining which healthcare services it's residents will have access to. If there's no federal planning for healthcare then you understand this to be at the state level. This means when a party has power in a state they are able to pass bills that control healthcare in the state or introduce ballot initiatives, amendments, etc.
Recognizing those factors while simultaneously saying Democrats in California cannot impose any sort of fully public option is contradictory. I think you want to see the Democrats as favoring public healthcare because you agree it's a necessary service for human rights, and you're forced to view the Democrats as the only viable option for any progress. However you also know they don't support public healthcare, so instead of resolving this conflict in your own political ideology, you have to blame me for not understanding things when simply stating the obvious. If Democrats supported public healthcare they would say they support it, what they support are tax schemes that in effect bolster the current structure of healthcare and all it's inherent problems. If they supported any other form of healthcare they would be introducing those changes in states where they have deterministic control over the delivery of healthcare.
This is the story of the left Democrat voter, making concessions and justifications for why they aren't a left-minded party, and why you're forced to support them as the only viable path for progress. Sad place to be especially when they're very actively bringing politics to the right over time. Even still people in this thread openly say, criticizing the Biden Democrats for supporting genocide is bad because it will help Trump, if Dems can't openly oppose genocide for this reason there's no hope. Instead of calling for Biden to step down so a better candidate can win they just roll over.
No one has said that states can't pass laws about healthcare. Obviously states can run their healthcare, that's within state jurisdiction.
What you are either not understanding or refusing to grasp is that there are gigantic hurdles with being the only universal healthcare provider in a country where everything else is privatized. (Just think about integrating medicare into that.) Simple hypotheticals though: I live in Oregon, don't pay insurance and am diagnosed with a long term cancer, the bill for which would be in the millions. Why don't I just move somewhere cheap in California and let the system handle it?
Universal healthcare works for the same reason insurance works, the healthy subsidize the sick. But, if you have a system that incentivizes the expensively sick to come, you are begging for trouble.
That's not to say anything of the nightmare of either state-lizing the hospitals, which are currently privately owned and usually part of large networks. The doctors are also employed privately. So you either take them over or need to train an entire new crop. You also have just created an entire new system for a single state that somehow needs to integrate with the framework that serves the other 88% of the population. You also worry about your best doctors fleeing for better paying opportunities (unless you think the public sector will in this one instance, and contrary to everywhere else in the world, offer the same wages) etc.
If Democrats supported public healthcare
Ahhhhh, I get it. You're not dumb, just young. Unsure how old you were in 2008, but had you been old enough to be paying attention, the Democrats ran on this goddamn promise in 2008 and were stymied by Republicans, leading to Obamacare.
As you get older, you will learn that things are actually pretty complex. It's worth learning about how systems work so that when you advocate change, it's not just stupid slogans and silly examples that again, are like saying "why don't these idiots just sprint all the time."
You're arguing all the same tired points that the Republicans do against public healthcare and using condescension as a crutch. The countries surrounding the US all have public or mixed healthcare as well as all the other G20 nations. You of course know that a US state can verify whether someone is a resident, as they already do, but the more wrong you are the more you have to rely on being disingenuous and condescending.
It's almost as if voting (very deliberately) doesn't actually impact what goes on behind the scenes (where capitalists control government), and that this happens no matter which of the 2 "teams" you vote for (or are we pretending that when dems use drones to bomb brown children it for "freedom"?)..
This is a pretty childish view. Both sides will do some things you dislike does not mean nothing changes.
You should read the playbook the heritage foundation is writing for 2024. It is goddamn terrifying.
Yes, both parties will have policies that we dislike. It's almost like the primaries, the mechanisms that control how a party acts, tend to be dominated by elders while our younger and more progressive members don't participate and instead complain that both parties are the same.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. As long as the older generations outvote us, the outcomes will reflect their wishes.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren't on the table though, and that's what's destroying the planet and justifying exploitation, there's a consensus between the parties on that. That's why the political topics up for debate (or ones masquerading as politics) are increasingly cultural issues. They may affect the distribution of certain people within this structure, or they may help ensure the "right people" are hurting within it, but the basic economic arrangement you find yourself in as a worker for instance remain unaffected. You don't succeed? That's an individual issue. Your justified and rational emotional reactions to this system are negative? That's an individual issue as well, maybe there's even a mental health outreach program to address this.
IMO change ultimately has to come from outside the system as the stresses it inflicts become increasingly unbearable, and the recent increases in aggressive labor actions are a sign of this, just like has happened in the past. That doesn't mean strategic voting is totally meaningless either. People have to accept things aren't good first though, else why would they be motivated to change things. Pretending everything is okay if you just vote the right way, or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire, is completely counterintuitive to affecting change.
I'm going to respond to both your responses in one.
You've got a few things tangled together.
No, undoing capitalism is not on the table, nor is that desired by the majority of the population.
The planet destroying, at least the climate change part, a carbon tax is a simple effective solution we've known about for years. Other countries are implementing their own version. Now, something like that isn't really on the table yet in America simply because the Left cannot win a sizeable majority and instead barely ekes out a win against one of the worst people imaginable (after losing to said monstrosity.)
Criticizing is important, that's how we get new and better candidates. Demanding better conditions is important. But, to go and say that voting is meaningless because both parties are the same is **exactly **what you want to do if you want to maintain the status quo. You must see that there's a difference between the two?
If people 40 and younger voted at the same rate as those 41 and older, I imagine the Democrats would have a supermajority, would be able to pass more climate legislation (though for what it's worth, the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation in decades) and a host of other meaningful reforms. Instead, we have to beg Joe goddamn Manchin. It's like when people complain about being fat but refuse to change their diet or exercise.
They have control in California and could implement class programs like socialized healthcare there, but they don't because they are funded by private business interests who don't want to lose profits.
Being left means being anti-capitalist, if you are supporting capitalist political goals that's a conflict of interest.
If you honestly think that California could, singlehandedly introduce a fundamentally different healthcare system than the rest of the country... I mean, wow. That's just... Not at all how things work.
Politics is a lot easier to talk about when you aren't constrained by reality although that talk doesn't mean much.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services, it's very doable for states to implement healthcare legislation. It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
You understand that's fundamentally different than transforming into universal healthcare, right? You might as well say that I am qualified to run google as I've used search AND have a gmail account.
Are you actually comparing a right to abortion with implementing universal healthcare? Really?
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US and states vary greatly in how they regulate healthcare. There is nothing stopping California Democrats from implementing publicly funded healthcare other than they don't want to do this because it runs contrary to the interest of their donors and PACs. State funded programs already provide primary care in cases where people aren't served by FFS. This even goes to municipal-level public health clinics. The idea a state government can't provide healthcare funding to it's citizens is contrary to programs that already exist. Expanding public health clinics and having the government negotiate fees with practitioners is absolutely doable because it already happens.
No one said there was?
But honestly... Well, it reminds me of when I was a really young kid and I watched soccer. I couldn't understand why the players ran really fast sometimes and couldn't just do that all the time.
That's sort of what this argument sounds like.
It's about as compelling as your nonsensical decision that protecting the right to abortion was pretty much the same as instituting a radically different form of healthcare.
I think this has been as productive as it's going to be. Cheers.
The amendment passed in Ohio is determining which healthcare services it's residents will have access to. If there's no federal planning for healthcare then you understand this to be at the state level. This means when a party has power in a state they are able to pass bills that control healthcare in the state or introduce ballot initiatives, amendments, etc.
Recognizing those factors while simultaneously saying Democrats in California cannot impose any sort of fully public option is contradictory. I think you want to see the Democrats as favoring public healthcare because you agree it's a necessary service for human rights, and you're forced to view the Democrats as the only viable option for any progress. However you also know they don't support public healthcare, so instead of resolving this conflict in your own political ideology, you have to blame me for not understanding things when simply stating the obvious. If Democrats supported public healthcare they would say they support it, what they support are tax schemes that in effect bolster the current structure of healthcare and all it's inherent problems. If they supported any other form of healthcare they would be introducing those changes in states where they have deterministic control over the delivery of healthcare.
This is the story of the left Democrat voter, making concessions and justifications for why they aren't a left-minded party, and why you're forced to support them as the only viable path for progress. Sad place to be especially when they're very actively bringing politics to the right over time. Even still people in this thread openly say, criticizing the Biden Democrats for supporting genocide is bad because it will help Trump, if Dems can't openly oppose genocide for this reason there's no hope. Instead of calling for Biden to step down so a better candidate can win they just roll over.
No one has said that states can't pass laws about healthcare. Obviously states can run their healthcare, that's within state jurisdiction.
What you are either not understanding or refusing to grasp is that there are gigantic hurdles with being the only universal healthcare provider in a country where everything else is privatized. (Just think about integrating medicare into that.) Simple hypotheticals though: I live in Oregon, don't pay insurance and am diagnosed with a long term cancer, the bill for which would be in the millions. Why don't I just move somewhere cheap in California and let the system handle it?
Universal healthcare works for the same reason insurance works, the healthy subsidize the sick. But, if you have a system that incentivizes the expensively sick to come, you are begging for trouble.
That's not to say anything of the nightmare of either state-lizing the hospitals, which are currently privately owned and usually part of large networks. The doctors are also employed privately. So you either take them over or need to train an entire new crop. You also have just created an entire new system for a single state that somehow needs to integrate with the framework that serves the other 88% of the population. You also worry about your best doctors fleeing for better paying opportunities (unless you think the public sector will in this one instance, and contrary to everywhere else in the world, offer the same wages) etc.
Ahhhhh, I get it. You're not dumb, just young. Unsure how old you were in 2008, but had you been old enough to be paying attention, the Democrats ran on this goddamn promise in 2008 and were stymied by Republicans, leading to Obamacare.
As you get older, you will learn that things are actually pretty complex. It's worth learning about how systems work so that when you advocate change, it's not just stupid slogans and silly examples that again, are like saying "why don't these idiots just sprint all the time."
You're arguing all the same tired points that the Republicans do against public healthcare and using condescension as a crutch. The countries surrounding the US all have public or mixed healthcare as well as all the other G20 nations. You of course know that a US state can verify whether someone is a resident, as they already do, but the more wrong you are the more you have to rely on being disingenuous and condescending.