I think they meant it doesn’t solve any problems because they never were the problem.

The Commonwealth still owns land in Australia (and 14 other countries ) and still heads the government all be it with limited powers. Literally, they are still colonizers. Fuck em.

I think you’ve misread me. It’s not like I’m oblivious to the danger we all face, that’s exactly why the inaction of the left makes me irritated. I also admittedly led with a softer touch in regards to organizing in my last comment because I had no idea if going overboard would just shutdown the conversation. While I live a fairly heteronormative life, I’m queer, so is my wife, and so are a large chunk of the people I surround myself with. I brought up zoning and infrastructure because I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to those topics so my effort isn’t wasted. Densifying is an environmental imperative. The spread out nature of our infrastructure is the single greatest threat to human survival because the vast majority of our fossil fuels goes to supporting it.

There is a reason I said I’m not a fortuneteller, we really don’t know how far Trump and Co will take it, and we will all have to be open to pivoting depending on what he does. The single greatest thing people can do is get involved in literally anything. Because once people understand how to navigate activism and politics, it becomes that much easier to pivot when things get bad. Many people on the left have to still take the first step, literally just getting off the couch and used to organizing. I’ve been encouraging that on lemmy and reddit specifically because people need to start somewhere. It’s been my experience that the people most angry on here, the people that refused to vote, etc, are also the people that never get involved in real activism past protests. I really just want people to engage, now, while there is still time…

I’m not a fortuneteller, depending on the route things take I’ll join whatever group(s) are fighting to save democracy and go from there. But aside from that I’ll focus on organizing for small wins, multi use zoning, local transit, shared use trails, etc. Things that improve the lives around you lead to positive impacts politically. I’m most interested in just moving forward in the ways that I can. No one needs to take a large bite, just getting involved leads to positive impacts. People who get involved also don’t tend to feel so helpless when they see how possible it is to get bills passed and good projects funded, that usually leads to a positive outcome. If things go to shit anyway, at least I’ll have done something and tried.

There are all sorts of things that could have been done, but I’m not sure whether it would have moved the needle enough. You can’t just show up in the bottom of the 9th and say. “I’ve rarely hit for your team, but if you don’t do what I say I won’t hit a home run for you.” That’s one of the things I’ve been trying to communicate, all be it grumpily.

The left needs to integrate themselves into the party and into activism permanently. Yes we will be working with people with whom we profoundly disagree on some issues. But we will also agree on many things, and that will create progress. That progress will leave room for negotiation and firm resolution. When you’re already sitting at the table and already part of the team, then you have the power to make change. Especially because the left is large enough and passionate enough to completely overrun the party like the Trumpists did with the right. Instead the left repeatedly does the one thing that will always result in nothing, they refuse to participate.

Its not really about just voting. Though when 10 million people stay home just because they don’t like the top of the ticket, it’s definitely silly. Those down ballot races are filled with progressives and further left candidates that the left could actually be supporting.

They see abstention and protest as action. Protesting and refusing to participate is cathartic, but it has little to no impact on policy. We need to actually get organized and flex our power… Even if it is somewhat adjacent to the party, if millions of far left Americans truly organize and show they can work as a team, the Dems will be forced to bend towards us. The Dems consistently work with organized people. People that are organized are massive blocks of power with the ability to truly mobilize, It’s why the Dems have often been so integrated into labor unions.

I also think the issue with Israel includes hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign pressure against anyone who “falls out of line” from Christian and Jewish political action groups that support Israel. There needs to be far more organizing on the left to counteract that, we’ve done maybe 15% of what needs to be done if we really want to tip that scale. I have no faith in the left to really do that work. So people won’t do the work, and won’t vote… But won’t see how they are a part of the problem.

I agree, voting is the bare minimum, if people are so frustrated, it should drive them to action. Democracy is an imperfect system, but it only truly works if people are actively engaged with it. If we don’t start taking it seriously, we certainly won’t have it much longer, if not Trump someone after him will strip it from us.

At the end of the day, I don’t really care as much about the rift in the Dem party, as much as I care about the inaction on the left. If the left truly engaged with the process, in whatever way they choose, the path will open up for at least some reconciliation in both directions. The real problem is the inaction on the left, imo. The fatalism and despair that leads to lethargy. We need true activism beyond just protesting, such as citizen lobbying, getting involved in local community, joining affinity groups that have legislative goals, etc. All of that stuff forces the party to take notice, and it works. I’ve been involved in many things in my life that resulted in passed left wing legislation, it starts with people choosing to try to make a difference.

I’ve given thousands of hours of my life to politics and activism throughout my life, and intend to continue to. I don’t have to justify any of it to your brain rot.

Complete revisionist history. Before Trump got the nomination the first time, the Republicans did everything they could to prop up any other candidate but him. They worked far harder to stop Trump than the Dems ever did to stop Bernie. When Bernie ran his first time he won a majority of the early caucuses, a system that heavily favors party insiders. Aside from a handful of people at the top, Bernie was well loved in the party, but he failed to get votes.

Democrats would rather lose than work with their left.

The might be the biggest lie I’ve heard in years. The Dems have been willing to work with the left for my entire lifetime. It’s the lefts “my way or the highway” mentality towards politics that makes it impossible. Parties have to be able to garner over 50% support to win elections and win issues. The right wing has had an everything and the kitchen sink mentality towards politics for years, they will appease the far right and the moderate right and both show up. When the left tries to do the same the far left goes “you’re only doing 80% of what I wanted, that’s evil, you have to do everything I wanted because my viewpoint is the only correct one!”.

Yes, I do plan to do the work, because I’m not a lazy braindead idiot. The country is not lost yet, we still have to fight. And if it does fall, we still fight. That’s what people who aren’t caught up in their moral purity do, they look at the situation and make the best decision available to them. The reason you whine so much is because it’s so much easier than actually putting in effort. The world has always been a difficult place filled with selfish people, the only thing preventing disaster is good people taking action, be one of the good ones and do something, anything, to improve the world.

Bernie could have easily been the nominee, if people actually showed up and voted for him more than Hillary. I’m not shocked or bothered that a party protected their own. Bernie came from the outside as an independent and tried to take the nomination. And he could have the same way trump did to the right. I was all for it and supported him as well, but either way he didn’t get the votes he needed. Why? Why didn’t his mass of supporters show up in large enough numbers either time? Because the far left doesn’t do the work, they never have in my lifetime. While I’m pretty far left, I don’t identify with most of you because your all lazy fucking cowards. Your primary position is giving up and bending over and taking it. Politics is work, if you’re unwilling to do the work then for the love, stop fucking whining, your constant inaction built this. Own it, move forward, and fucking do something for once.

Yeah, the Dems are made up of scared moderates, because the left has completely abandoned politics and conceded all their power. If you want the party to move left, become the party. It really isn’t mystical or complicated, power goes to those that take it. The left would rather stand on the outside looking in be cause at least they can complain and blame everyone else but themselves.

It didn’t work with Bernie for more reasons than the parties resistance. A lot of people on the left that dislike the party don’t seem to understand that you still have to join the party and get involved with it if you want the party to move left. Party members and active involved people shape where the party goes. We absolutely can shift the Dems left, but it means holding our noses and becoming the party. The Dems have always been an open door, big tent, party. Walk into the tent and change minds…

I’ve only overlapped charging systems of the same type once. It’s really not a big deal.

Not all my tools are battery operated, corded jigsaw, sander, miter saw, table saw, etc. Not all the batteries hold the same purpose and would need a different charger either way. An electric drill and leaf blower need entirely different levels of power. In the grand scheme of things I think I only overlapped charging systems once.

Meh, I have Bosch, Ryobi, DeWalt, Ego, Ridgid. Why not just by the best according to cost/benefit for each thing. Corporate loyalty is dumb. I get the battery thing, but I’m pretty sure I got most of the tools at a good enough price to make the different batteries irrelevant.

If Iran won a war against Israel at least some of the more extreme in Iran want extermination. You could potentially be trading an incredibly one-sided war with a possible second Holocaust. Many of the most extreme political factions in surrounding countries want Israel wiped off the map and replaced with a Muslim theocracy. If you destabilize the area you’re risking worse than is currently happening.

I don’t think that means the USA should be giving Israel a blank check, but I’m also not a foreign policy expert and I suspect the diplomatic situation is far more complex than you and I can comprehend sitting comfortably on our couch. Especially since holding Israel accountable is also not as popular domestically as it seems in online communities like this one. So any diplomatic pressure has to be behind closed doors.

I’m saying I’m not the one that accused you. You’re confusing me with the person who responded before me.

I’m not the person who first responded, I accused you of nothing…

The British repeatedly gave blankets they new had smallpox. Todays evidence is that nothing happened, the virus was already dead. But it’s worth mentioning that from a Native American perspective this still happened, they received blankets and shortly after they had an epidemic. Whether they contracted it from the blankets or not is sort of besides they point, they intended to infect Native Americans with smallpox and local tribes ended up having a smallpox epidemic shortly after. Maybe they found another way, or maybe someone got infected by coming in contact with the British during one of the conflicts. But does it really matter? With or without blankets they still murdered millions (thought to be the largest genocide in human history) of native people on their own land simply because they wanted to steal all the land. They didn’t need smallpox to do that, they did it with guns, and forced starvation.

Adobe Scan works as good as a scanner if you use their cropping system to square up the page afterwards.

Yeah meeting new people isn’t easy once you’re out of school. If you are outgoing there are definitely avenues though. There are meetup groups for everything. You might not have hobbies, but you still do things. You bike? Go to the local riding meetup. You like boardgames? Sign up for your local open play at a boardgame store. You cook? Take a cooking class at a kitchen store or co-op. Anything you do, there is probably already a local group meeting up to do it.