politics

you say “he’s just a social fascist” and scoff

wouldn't it be more appropriate for that audience to point out he immediately capitulated to the IDF and NYPD goons, how Obama pulled the same kind of schtick, in fact with a more impressive activist record and far more restraint, even paling around with Electronic Intifada?

hearing the way Americans talk about the Palestine issue makes me ill. the majority of rhe discourse seems to be about what kind of burgers to eat. the tone around being "normal" and making sure to not offend your fellow burgerologists is resonant with your message OP I'm sure there will be much success for the north american pink tide

she said she had to deradicalize herself a bit from this site because she was having trouble interacting with normal people and not sounding like she was unhinged

Im doing the opposite. I'm sick of being hinged. Im blowing my hinges way off and telling my coworkers they're possessed by Hitler

The first thing you can tell people is to just read his website: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform. I was talking to someone recently, and we were talking about grocery stores and how in many parts of the country there are like 3, and one of the three is trash. It's almost like they keep that one around because it needs to exist for there to not be a "monopoly" on groceries. Which led to the person I'm talking to telling me about all the construction companies getting consolidated across the region (he was a former construction worker).

I think it was Richard Wolf that I first heard this from, but eventually I said something to the effect of: People always say that capitalism thrives on competition. Competition drives innovation; innovation increases productivity; increased productivity means greater abundance for all of us. But when two people compete, what usually is the outcome? Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Capitalism breeds winners and losers, and everyone likes to win, and no one likes to lose. What do winners do when they're winning? They keep trying to win. The way you do that is by buying out the competition; that way they never really have to compete, and so they never have to lose. So instead of innovation, you just get fat and bloated companies that have no reason to do anything new or innovative.

In my town, through subsidies the federal government provided, they were able to provide me and my family with a considerable amount of produce, eggs, and dairy 2x a month for 5 months for only $350. That's gone now, and I know several older people, as well as families living on limited income, who really benefited from that program. Local farmers benefited as well, because the town sourced all its food from those local farmers.

All these "government-run grocery stores" do is precisely what my town's CSA program did: deliver people food at a very low cost. You could imagine a situation where these government-run grocery stores set the baseline for other local chains and ensure that people in areas that are under-serviced by the private grocery chains have access to food in their area. There is no way to "buyout" a government-run grocery store; the only way you can get close to a buyout is by forcing the government to close them. That's what happened to our CSA. It was thriving when the funding was pulled.

Occasionally you have to dance around the subject; it's not fun but you have to get your foot in the door somehow.

yeah the way we talk to each other here shouldn’t be how we talk to the broader working class. moving the masses takes a lot of patience and meeting people where they’re at, making them feel heard and not dismissed, and easing them further along by at once finding points of agreement but also encouraging them to go further with their critique of the system.

EDIT: also our private convos with people in our lives trying to change their minds separate from a larger org recruitment strategy or concrete organizing ask only has so much value, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to shift every single persons thinking. like it can have some light value and plant some meaningful seeds, but just keep some perspective.

I think "deradicalizing" is absolutely the wrong answer unless you are in danger of being beaten or shot. In terms of simply talking to people, it is good to stand for what is true even if it is far removed from what they believe, it's just a matter of communicating it competently (and it actually being true rather than just moralizing bullshit, which is where "wall" discourse comes from).

I have had lengthy debates, for example, with an educated professional who said that they had never even heard of the idea of landlordism not being a real job, much less considered the idea, until I said it to them. I nonetheless was able to persuade them that it was true and build credibility over the course of a few discussions.