“Personal liberty” is what allows capitalists to exploit us. They have all the “liberty” you think you have. The “liberty” to put lies in the media, to pay you less than the value of your labor in order to extract a profit, to charge extortionist prices for healthcare and other basic needs, to influence politics and to crush competing public industries. These are all the things that “liberty” gets you under capitalism. “Personal liberty above all” != working class liberation.

you completely dense morons

You not wanting to understand what we’re telling you does not make us the morons.

edit:

In the sense that the government can’t seize your shit […] that doesn’t mean we can’t tax the shit out of billionaires

Doesn’t it? Where do you draw the line between taxes and government seizure, especially in the context of capital owners? Also, wouldn’t it be far more effective for the government to simply own the means of production and operate at the behest of the people? Does taxing capitalists more while still allowing them to have full control over the means of production - which they’ll use to influence the people and government in their favor - not simply set up the same situation we find ourselves in now, just some amount of time down the road?

I would say it does set that up (in fact it has in the past, just look at what was in the new deal and how it’s been eroded since it was signed. Assuming you’re familiar with US history…), and that is why liberalism is incompatible with anti-capitalism.

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” Ursula K Le Guin

It’s been done before, even under more oppressive conditions. It can and will be done again.

You quite literally cannot. Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism.

Fascists and their enablers are not our friends.

They specifically mentioned the liberal establishment. You’re talking about criticism from people that probably abhor the liberal establishment even more than they do progressive liberals like Bernie.

Also I think this kind of criticism is important and I don’t know why it bothers people so much. It’s okay to be critical of things you ultimately support, either for ideological or simply for tactical reasons. It’s called critical support, and I think people should do it more often. Even if the criticism isn’t ultimately supportive, that doesn’t mean all of a person’s hate is directed in that single place. There may be more than just the surface level WHAT, like the WHY of it all and what that implies, that you are missing (or dismissing).

You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything, and refusal to engage in critical analysis - pretending any politician can do no wrong (or the contrary case; can do no right), getting defensive, and outright rejecting any investigation to prove or disprove your conclusion - does not fall into the category of ‘standing for something’ to me but rather overzealous team sports.

We have to practice more critical thinking, despite how badly our political class does not want us doing that. Whether it helps any specific politician win an election or not (which you can still do even with criticisms). Especially considering that it’s this kind of criticism that has made it untenable for a growing number of politicians to deny the genocide in Palestine; it’s pretty clear that the only needle that uncritical support will move is that of the progressives, towards the liberal end of the spectrum. After all, it’s our criticism of the current system and its complicity in human suffering that makes us progressive in the first place.

Fascism is capitalism

Lmfao pragmatism is when you continue doing the thing that every generation leading to this point has done to either stalled or negative progress, and shit on your fellow classmen for not doing it as hard as you. Real winning strategy, you are definitely a qualified arbiter of who is “up for real change” and not. Abandon all substantive arguments, cast aside that stinky old historical materialism. internetcitizen2 is here to tell us what’s what! Thank heavens!

Sorry that happened I guess? Don’t really know what it has to do with me or anything I said.

do you have anything of substance to add?

If those “other factors” were legitimate why would china be investing anything into infrastructure? If they could simply unilaterally repress discontent, why would they invest so heavily in the experience of their working class? Doesn’t that imply a huge impossible level of benevolence, in your version of events, to do these things with absolutely no mechanism for the people to enforce it?

So you recognize that our voting system features heavy disenfranchisement, but you use that as a reason for why it works?

The lesson here isn’t that voting alone is all that significant; it’s that the bourgeois will claw away even the most insignificant crumb they can get, and that’s precisely why democracy does not work under capitalism. The difference in that distinction is that; rather than fighting many small one-step-behind fights in the name of voting, in hopes we get to vote for some of the change that our people need 10 years down the road; we organize and build our capacity to directly fight the big fight for our people.

This is one of the many contradictions of capitalism; democracy is how the system maintains its legitimacy, but democracy itself is a threat to capital interests. Too much and too little democracy are both against ruling class interests. Too much, and the working class can influence politics in a way that threatens the ruling class and their power. Too little, and the system loses legitimacy, opening itself to the possibility of revolt.

The ruling class maintains the balance by minimizing the possibility of a coordinated working-class resistance; guaranteeing only the minimum amount of democracy, only for as long as they recognize the working class’s ability to organize and overthrow them. Making a show of what little faux democracy we have is a tactic to that end; the carrot hanging from the stick. It sows division, keeps us occupied, keeps our attention in one predictable place, and attempts to convince us of the system’s legitimacy; all of these being obstacles in organizing an effective resistance against the guy holding the stick.

No it’s definitely the latter

In Germany the recycling is sorted at the household level, rather than the mixed recycling that is practiced in other countries. The paper, plastic, glass, and compost all get their own bins and/or bag color.

The cartons are lined with plastic too

Yeah that tracks

The people who stand to lose the most in a situation will always act with the highest clarity and urgency. It’s true in general that we must save ourselves and can’t expect the ruling classes of other nations to step in to stop even the highest crime against humanity.

At the end of the day, the global ruling class is self-interested and only acts against that when there comes to be very few alternatives. That said, the discontent around the world is growing and it’s only a matter of time until it reaches a tipping point.

As for the non-west, nobody wants to start a war or draw the ire of the west without having much capacity to change what is happening. That’s my speculative opinion, at least. At this point I’d ask someone more knowledgeable on global politics to chime in.

no more fake than October 7th

wow, what a great time to bring this article up https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hundreds-its-own-people-7-october/49216

The war machine generates power and wealth by wreaking devastation onto far away lands, then uses that power and wealth to create more war. Netanyahu is and has always been powerless without the international community enabling him. Israel and its colonial project are wholly western inventions. The western nations backing Israel wouldn’t suddenly shut it down now that it is executing its intended purpose while also absorbing most if not all of the generated backlash. Not without major resistance.

It’s a touchy subject. Pretty understandably, I might add.