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Cake day: April 6th, 2024

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  • We’re talking about two different groups of people here. The working class trying to survive get a pass on individual actions because they have no means. They should probably vote and organize and get engaged to better their outcomes.

    I’m talking about the millions of people that have the means, but just don’t because they quite literally don’t care. I see them every day. It’s the millions of people buying new $60k trucks and SUVs every few years, and large suburban homes, and who have trash cans that are 5x the size of mine that still can’t contain their mindless shopping detritus, and spend tons of money on trendy home furnishings but “don’t think solar makes sense” or don’t bother trying literally anything that reduces carbon.

    I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful, and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work. If you can convince neighbors to get heat pumps solar and give them a test ride on your ebike and show them how easy it is to live without gas you can probably get them to vote for someone that is focused on the climate. Sitting around you and your neighbors matching F150s blaming China and Bezos and speaking in abstract terms about “collective action” seems less effective to me.

    Sorry for the rant!


  • They’re not a distraction. Lots of us have solar, eliminated fossil fuels in the home, use public transit, don’t buy shit we don’t need, etc. Thats literally collective action, and we need a lot more people to do it. Nobody is pretending like their single action is going to magically fix everything.

    What does collective action mean to you? We have tax incentives for electrification as a result of policies borne from voting correctly in 2020 - now actually getting those solar panels is an individual action that magically doesn’t matter? Or is it a result of collective action and it is ok?

    Everyone should be doing as much as they possibly can given their means - personal and collective. It’s not an either or.


  • spidermanchild@sh.itjust.workstomemes@lemmy.worldChoices
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    17 days ago

    The point is that if everyone did what you (and I) do, we’d actually get somewhere. Seems like we’re in the minority though, unfortunately. That doesn’t make the person you replied to wrong, it just means most people continue to just blindly consume, and when they can’t consume as much as they want they blindly vote for asswipes promising them even more. That’s the cultural problem at the heart of this all. I’m running out of individual actions I can do too, but that doesn’t mean those were not helpful.



  • Nobody said it was difficult to understand. I agree it’s a dead simple idea, and like most dead simple ideas it’s not actually a good idea. There’s a reason Bernie Sanders wholeheartedly endorsed Kamala (and Hillary), but sure, all the .ml folks must know better. If you think Bernie is too centrist then you need to understand that your cohort is so laughably out of step with the populace that you’ll never get anywhere. Kind of like where PSL is at with zero seats (ever, btw, not just currently).

    Real people will be harmed by another Trump term. Immigrants, women, POC, LGBT, basically anyone other than healthy white men. It says a lot when you think they’re all disposable enough to help Trump to win in the hopes of a future socialist movement that won’t ever happen because the movement can’t even win a single seat anywhere in the country. AOC correctly called the green party “not serious” and they’ve actually won a small handful of elections, unlike PSL. Movements start from the bottom up, not the top down.






  • So you’re saying that millions of fragile men are bullied into buying full size trucks and they have no agency whatsoever into their purchase? This is no different than exposing your kids to second hands smoke because you are afraid if you don’t smoke you won’t look cool. I seriously don’t understand why we’re making excuses and coddling these weak egos instead of actually supporting the victims of the violence these people inflict on other road users. I’m more than happy to criticize the regulatory bodies and the manufacturers for failing society as well, but that doesn’t mean the purchasers that make this all possible are innocent. It’s a rotten subculture that needs to be called out at all levels.





  • I think you’re conflating two different things. There are a variety of social factors that affect age cohorts differently, and a lot of that comes down to the experience during formative years. We are a product of our environment in many ways, and it’s not nonsense to study and opine on these shared experiences and how they shape us. Class solidarity is an entirely different subject. You likely do have more in common with your social class across generations, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything in common with wealthy millennials. I wouldn’t let lazy journalism own the concept of generations itself.


  • You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.

    As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.


  • Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.



  • They said it was orange corn flour all along, and they have a history of not actually damaging anything but using the appearance of “damage” to make a point. Corn flour is a very simple, inert substance. You’re actually demonstrating the hypocrisy that this group is trying to highlight - more concern over something like corn flour damaging these rocks than the damage done by millions of barrels of crude oil extracted every day. Where’s your outrage over acid/micro plastic in rain that falls on these stone every week? There will be new species of moss that grow on these rocks, or pollen that blows on them from invasive species, possibly damaging them as the climate heats up - are you worried about that? Why can folks summon outrage over something inert that touched a famous rock, but not for destruction of the actual biosphere? If Stonehenge is that fragile, why are people allowed anywhere near it? You’re more than welcome to disagree with them, but if you spend more energy complaining about Just Stop Oil than you do complaining about actual oil companies, you’re actually just supporting the oil companies.

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